Tata Docomo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices Limited, has launched ‘Roam Free’ offer for its postpaid customers. Under the offer, customers can enjoy incoming Roaming absolutely free anywhere across the country on Tata Docomo network.

While outgoing roaming will be charged at one paise per second. Customers need to pay anything to avail the offer.

“Customers can now roam the country anywhere on our network, free of the stress of picking up an incoming call as incoming roaming is absolutely free on these plans. In addition, they can continue to make outgoing calls on per second billing,” GurinderSingh Sandhu, head corporate marketing, Tata Teleservices Limited, said.

Currently this offer comes under three different plans namely: Roam Free 299, Roam Free 499 and Roam Free 799. Under these plans, customer can take 4, 7 and 12 free toppings respectively.

For example in Roam Free 299 plan, Tata Docomo gives the option to customise usage plans by choosing any combination of the four basic toppings which are 200 local minutes, 150 STD minutes, 500 local SMSs or 100 MB 2G data. Similarly in Roam free 499 and 799 he can respectively take 7 or 12 free toppings.

Existing customers can avail the offer, by just sending SMS to 121 to start using this benefit on the new Roam Free plans with greater than 299 rental.

Bharti airtel on Tuesday launched its 3G services in West Bengal’s Durgapur. Airtel also launched its mobile comics portal, video talkies and IPL live on Mobile TV on its 3G service.

With 3G, customers can have a host of other services such as video calls and HD gaming.

Launching Airtel 3G in Durgapur, Raghunath Mandava, operations director, east, mobile services, Bharti airtel said, “We are extremely pleased to announce the launch of 3G in Bengal telecom circle at Durgapur. We are today delighted to announce the launch of Comics, Video Talkies and IPL on Mobile TV &#151 thereby bringing in the complete power of 3G to our customers.”

Airtel 3G customers can now pay Rs 5 per day and start receiving unlimited comics from a wide collection of famous titles, including regional content.

To subscribe, Airtel mobile customers can send ‘3G’ to 54321. Upon receiving a WAP link for 3G Zone, customers can select the comics’ link. They will then be directed to the comics section’s main page, where they can accept the price subscription and can start reading their favourite comics, including regional content like Tinkle, Archies and Tales of Durga by Amar Chitra Katha.

Video Talkies portal on Airtel 3G allows customers to watch popular Bollywood and regional movies (including Bengali) in high quality. The movies are compressed into 15 minute capsules comprising of the best scenes and songs with background story narration.
To subscribe, customers can send ‘3G’ to 54321, receive a WAP link for Airtel 3G Zone, select Video Talkies and choose from a wide range of top films and regional language categories. The service is available for Rs 25 (per view) and Rs 15 per week for 1 movie on a subscription basis.

Customers can now watch IPL live matches through Mobile TV &#151 anytime, anywhere – powered by Apalya. This new service will enable easy viewing of the ongoing cricket tournament by millions of eager viewers. Mobile TV also brings in other exciting viewing options suitable for the entire family.

The telco has also launched 3G dongles for laptop users in West Bengal.

Airtel 3G is already available in 22 locations across India including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Coimbatore, Mysore, Manipal, Udipi, Jaipur, Delhi – NCR, Hubli, Patna, Hyderabad, and now Durgapur.

To know more or join Airtel 3G services – customers can visit www.airtel.in or call 12134 (toll free) or SMS ‘3G HELP’ to 121.

Despite being launched three months ago, mobile number portability has hardly been utilised by customers. So far only one per cent of mobile users in the country have opted to switch service providers.

MNP, which was launched in January this year, allows mobile users to change their operator without changing their phone number.

According to figures provided by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Vodafone Essar was the biggest gainer till the end of February with approximately 190,000 persons switching to its services. Reliance Communications lost about 305,000 customers in the same period. The second biggest gainer was Idea Cellular, with more than 150,000 ported customers.

These minuscule numbers, however, do not portray the real picture. Probably, many more users applied for MNP but did not end up switching operators because they were offered better plans by their existing service providers.

We analysed the MNP offerings of Vodafone and Airtel and found something interesting.
First we requested a Porting code for an Airtel connection. Airtel had gained nearly 150,000 ported customers till the end of February.

As soon as we received the porting code we got a call from Airtel’s retention department. The customer care agent offered us double the Talk time for free, and local calls charged at just 20 paise per minute!

In addition to that, it also sent us two free movie tickets a couple of days later (this was probably because of heavy usage on that Airtel connection).

But Airtel is not alone in this regard. A colleague who uses Vodafone’s pre paid connection, and who barely uses his phone, got 100 per cent talk time for two months as part of a retention package from the operator.

For our another connection Vodafone, also offered us a bill plan for Rs 350 with 750 minutes of free calls plus 350 free SMSs on our post paid connection.

Our colleague, who switched to Airtel, was offered a post paid pack for Rs 99 by the operator, even though the minimum billing plan displayed on its website is Rs 199. Under the plan, he got Rs 100 worth of both local and STD calls at 50 paise per minute.

Another Vodafone Mumbai user who shared his experience with MNP got a Rs 199 plan with 400 free local minutes to any network, and after the free minutes were exhausted, he was charged 30 paise per pulse for local calls to any network; 0.50 paise per minute for STD calls, and a discount of Rs 100 on SMS messages.

However, there are things that you need to remember to get the best offers. The first is that you mustn’t call the retention department yourself. If the operator feels that you are doing it to get offers, it will not entertain you.

The other thing is that you must disclose the true reason for your switch as the free stuff will then be better suited to your needs. For example, if you are looking for better local call or data rates, say so. The retention department will then offer you an appropriate plan.

If you are not satisfied with customer service or network quality, don’t get bogged down by the retention offer, there are better plans available with other operators too.

Hence, the moral of the story is: try MNP even if you don’t intend to switch, you will get the best offer, if not from your existing service provider, from another operator.