If you are an Indian and have come to the US recently, you will be ’shocked’ to see how closed and primitive the US cell phone market is! Well, except for the iPhone which is by no means primitive — but its ‘locked’ to the not-so-popular AT&T network.
Imagine getting charged for receiving SMS messages! Its really a sad story out here. There is no easy way for an average person to buy a phone of his or her choice without signing up for a contract. And the contact is normally 2 years! Which means, you must be a subscriber of that cell phone provider for the period of the contract at an agreed upon price. The average cost of plan such plans - around 40$ to 45$ a month (data plans would cost extra!), which is way to expensive compared to India!!! And if you want to switch to an other network, you need to cancel you current contract by paying an “early termination fee”.
If you want to buy a phone without a contract, you need to spend a fortune and its equally painful to get a service from a good provider (without buying a new handset). In other words, its in no way a free market. And, clearly, the down side to this entire thing is … the entire US cell phone market is lagging years behind the ‘world’!
Do check out this very interesting article on the US Cell phone industry which compares the US cellphone industry model with the “The Soviet Ministry Model”….: Free My Phone
I feel privatization is a good thing for India, but competition is very important too. And the most important thing is there must be a very effective regulatory authority like TRAI, which kind of enforces the rules to which the companies in India comply. Kudos to the Indian telephone industry!!
I wish India never gets into a situation like the US when it comes to telecommunications.
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October 23rd, 2007 at 12:30am
Finally after 6 months, managed to get a cell phone without any deposits. I guess my credit history is starting to build up now. The last time when I asked for a cell phone service, I was told to deposit $750!!
I still say cell phone market in US sucks. The service providers dictate the market. No good handsets to choose too. You are kind of forced to buy from the limited range of handsets that the services providers have to offer.
After doing some major research, I opted for T-Mobile service. The service plan is pretty decent (Get More 1500), but is quite expensive compared to the mobile service back in India. With the plan, you are kind of forced to buy a cell phone, and T-mobile had very limited variety. Nothing compared to the barrage of cell phones available in India!.
I picked the Motorola Razr V3 (silver), since it was decently priced (keep in mind that I have an 1 year contract!). I had also read lots about its looks, and its coolness factor. Its supposed to be the Best and the “Most Happening” phone in the US of A currently in the market!.
The Razr V3 definitely has the looks! Its cool & sexy. Very sleek and slim. Its got a very beautiful finish, and a 260K color TFT display. It has a decent battery life too. And that’s where it ends. I being a Nokia 6600 user, feel like a total handicapped using this phone.
Here are some things which suck big time about the Razr V3…
- Its a flip phone. So, you need to open the flap to make/receive calls. And, the Razr V3 is designed in such a way that its next to impossible to open the phone with one hand. So, if you receive a call while you are eating or using your other hand, its a struggle.
- The phone is not at all extensible. Its got very little internal memory (5 MB), and there is no way to increase it. No slots for memory cards either.
- The phone boasts that it can play MP3 tones. Yes. It does have a great stereo sound, but with 5 MB of space, you can only store ring tones, and if you are lucky enough, you can store a MP3 song or two.
- It has a 4x digital Zoom camera - but the 640 x 480 resolution sucks big time. This phone deserves a better resolution camera.
- No Video recording. …….. and even if you could, you wouldn’t have enough space to store the recorded clips.
- Using Bluetooth, the phone could not detect most of the other Bluetooth devices that were around. But the other devices could detect and connect to the Razr V3. Once connected, I could transfer files as usual.
- There is an small stamp sized display on the outside (on the flap). But, you cannot do any customization specific to this display.
- The phone supports Java, but its very very slow. Again due to space constraints, you cannot load lots of applications
- The phone does not recognize WAV files!!! However, it plays Midi files, and MP3 files as ring tones.
- No support for .rm (real media) files when it comes to video. Neither can it play DivX encoded files (.avi).
Compared to the above, if you consider the features, my Nokia 6600 beats the Motorola Razr V3 hands down! While I came here to the US, I had brought my Nokia 6600 from India. So, after using the Razr V3 for couple of days, Now I am back to my Nokia 6600! I plan to use the Razr as a back up phone! Just in case. Or may be… just to ’show off’. hahaha…
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July 25th, 2006 at 01:14am
Come July 25th, I would have finished 6 months using Skype-In. I had used Skype prior to that, but it was mainly for Skype to Skype calls or Skype-out calls. I would also be finishing my 6 months here in the United States this month end.
During these 6 months, i have used Skype as my *only* phone to receive calls. This service is called the Skype-In service. The main reason for me to go for Skype-in initially was, I wanted a phone number which I could give to my parents before I left India!. So, I had a US number of Kingpsort Area code, when I was in India. I also had a feeling that it would take some time for me to settle down in US and get a phone number.
Over all, I am kind of satisfied with Skype. But I must say, I am not very happy. Here are some of the Pros and Cons of using Skype in no particular order:
Pros:
- The Call quality is great. No questions here.
- Outgoing calls - Very Cheap. I can say dirt cheap. Initially, it used to cost me around 2.1 cents per minute to call any number in US, but later on in May, Skype make all calls made from US to US and Canada free.
- Incoming calls - The Skype-in service costs $12 for 3 months (or some $38 for a year). So, its cheap again. The local phone service here (Sprint) costs around 30$ per month. So, comparatively its much cheaper.
- Voice mail is free with Skype-In. Its a very basic voicemail service. But it works. Well, most of the time.
- You can forward your calls to any other number
- You can make and receive calls from anywhere as long as you have Internet access.
- Skype worked pretty well from my office network too which is behind a firewall. Skype is pretty popular for this reason too. So, I can make long distance calls or even receive calls at office
- In its current version, Skype allows upto 4 parties in a conference. Works well while making international calls.
- International calls rates are pretty cheap and are comparable to other VOIP players. Its a bit expensive when compared to Reliance India call - when making calls to India, But again, Skype - to - Skype calls are free.
- Has got excellent SDK/API support - so, there are lot of third party tools/software which interact with Skype.
- I have bought a skype-to-usb-to-Phoneline adaptor. So, I use a regular cordless phone to make and answer calls. So, I am not tied to the computer.
- Video conference works great - Quality of video is much better than other applications.
Cons:
- Well, Skype is not a true telephone company. Its a Internet company based out of Europe. So, there is absolutely no customer service. There is an helpdesk and a ticket system on the Skype website, but it sucks big time.
- Even though you buy stuff from Skype, you don’t get a proper invoice (phone bill), which shows your name/address and phone number (Skype-in number) on it. Now, you might be wondering why the hell that would be required?.. .. Its required when you are new in US, and you want open and bank account or something similar, and they ask you address proof etc. I had a very difficult time trying to open a citibank account, which they refused to open without a phone bill.
- Couple of months back, Skype had some technical problems, and I think i missed some incoming calls.
- Same with the case with voice mails.
- No caller id for your outgoing call. So, the receiver receives your calls as a call from 012345.
- You get caller Id for your incoming calls, but only the number. It does not display the name. (the local phone lines, and some other VOIP players show caller ID with the name of the caller).
- If you don’t have a the adapter that I have mentioned about, then you must be close to the computer (with a mic) to make/receive calls.
- The Processor utilization is relatively high when call is in progress.
- Video chat take lots of bandwidth - It does not matter here in US, but if you are in India, and have a Usage Limit on your Internet access, then you need to be very careful while using video chat.
- No 911.
Overcall I would rate my Skype experience around 6 on a scale of 10. But I must say, you can really save a lot of money if you can live up with basic telephone connectivity.
Currently, at Houston, in Chitra’s appartment, we have subscribed to the Sunrocket service which is again a VOIP service, but works much differently from Skype. Its not as cheap has Skype, but has lot less cons then mentioned in the above list. Will post more about Sunrocket in the future after using it for a couple of months.
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July 14th, 2006 at 12:35am