Huawei Honor Holly 2 Plus (TIT-AL00)

I am using this smartphone from Huawei for last 1 months and counting. In this post I will share the experiences with this low cost yet powerful smartphone of Honor series.

India's Telecom Map - 2G/3G/4G [2016]

Back at Telecomtalk I had made a series of Telecom Maps. I had shared 2G, 3G and 4G maps earlier. But with the change of time those maps need to be updated. However this year i.e. 2016 will be the year of LTE in India. Apart from Airtel who started 4G services back in 2012 this year will see several players to jump into 4G space. Idea and Vodafone already launched their 4G services in selected markets. Jio, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries will launch its commercial launch anytime soon. 

Let's start with Idea Cellular. We will discuss both 3G and 4G spectrum of Idea Cellular. 

Idea Cellular - 3G and 4G Maps

Idea won 2.1GHz spectrum in 11 circles in 2010, those airwaves are used for 3G services. In 2015 auction, Idea grabbed a chunk of 5MHz on 2.1GHz band in Kolkata and 900MHz spectrum in Delhi. In Delhi Idea launched UMTS900, i.e. 3G services over 900MHz band (similar to Airtel's Platinum 3G). 

It should be noted that Idea has almost pan India 3G presence via ICRA route over Airtel and Vodafone's 3G networks.

In last 2 years Idea kept saying that India is not ready for 4G/LTE. However sensing the threat from Reliance Jio's entry in 4G turf, Idea started rolling out 4G services in selected circles using it's technology neutral 1.8GHz band. 

In November 2015 Idea acquired spectrum in two more circles (Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh West) from Videocon. Right now Idea is capable of roll out LTE-FDD on 1800MHz band in total of 12 circles. The deal with Videocon was cancelled and eventually Airtel acquires 6 circles from Videocon.

It should be noted that in 2010 Idea did not win any of 2.3GiHz band. 

Living with Redmi Note 3

I am always a fan of CDMA data - they are just smooth, like imported scotch! However using CDMA EVDO data on smartphone came to me a bit late. I started using a imported Boost Mobile HTC Desire 510 with my MTS connection since August 2015. The phone was good with few issues. Data is working flawlessly with Reliance CDMA and MTS both.

Why Redmi Note 3 then? Answer is why not! It supports CDMA, unofficially and runs on MIUI.

I planned for RN3 3Gi/32Gi but did not get one, thanks to Xiaomi's shitty flash sale. After 2 tries, I bang on RN3 2Gi/16Gi from Mi.com.

When I got RN3, I did not put SIM/RUIM in it, and started using it over WiFi. My Google got registered, contacts, Gmail and all Google apps synced without any problem.

Enable National Roaming to Get Network Access on Reliance 4G SIM

Whatever the loyal fans of CDMA are thinking, CDMA will continue to be ceased in India. Starting from BSNL and MTNL which has pretty low subscriber base, the largest CDMA operator of the country – Reliance Communications continues to shut down its CDMA services across the country in the favor of LTE.

Before the migration RCom promised CDMA users will be shifted to 4G, but post-migration users were actually shifted to GSM platform and in circles with no 3G spectrum for RCom people are struggling with 2G. It seems RCom has made a fast boot of CDMA to 4G without a proper plan.

Many users who are using R-CDMA as their primary numbers suffered the most. But there are lots of R-CDMA users who are enjoying fast and cheap data over RCom’s EVDO platform, and many of them are using non-RUIM based imported smartphones. With the closure of CDMA services their smartphones had become just a paperweight.

Post migration many users were not able to connect to internet over R-GSM. RCOM stores were able solve this issue by a software patch installed in the newly replaced 4G enabled Smart SIM. But even after patch some users’ data connectivity to Reliance 3G/2G was not restored (note Reliance 4G is yet to be launched to these users). According to RCOM customer care you must enable national roaming via ‘SIM TOOLKIT’ to get access to Reliance 2G/3G.