Comments on: 3G Gets Poor Response – A Pricing Or Device Issue? – Impact On Auctions?

By: Manish

Manish — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:25:26 +0000

My own experience of 3G out here in lucknow has been a nightmare!incompetent staff and most of the time the 3G tower down adds upto the woes!And as if the service wasnt sucking off enough,the recharge of data plan was disabled on my number and miraculously i was being billed for higher costs of 2G plans while using 3G service.All in all the height of incompetence combined with arrogance and errors is called Bsnl 3G,avoid at all costs.

By: Prabbu

Prabbu — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:20:05 +0000

Hi Rajiv,

This blog will give a wake-up call to BSNL officials. Not only 3G, they goofed up with a 2G device called EVDO. The assured speed was up to 2mbps and it worked at 25 kbps downloads, fair enough. The not-so-friendly customer service and the typical government attitude of helpdesk members make most of the public think twice before going for anything to do with BSNL. At least in my city, Bangalore.

I have used the EVDO device and was in trouble on national holidays, nobody seems to be bothered about rectifying the issue during holidays.

I think probably it is because of this attitude BSNL is not able to attract many for 3G.

Two months back, I contacted a very senior official of BSNL to ask him about 3G launch. He was so excited and promised me that he will give me !!! 3G over landline !!! by May 2009. We had a good laugh.

This is the technical realization they have. So how will you expect us to count on them.

But it made me think if they are launching some kind of 3G Modem.

!!! High Hopes !!!

By: Puneet

Puneet — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:53:29 +0000

According to me the price issue played a major role in poor response.
The plans lauched by bsnl and mtnl are very costly and bit weird.

By: Sriram Vadlamani

Sriram Vadlamani — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:05:23 +0000

Rajiv, I think its a mix of a lot of things.

1. PSU’s got a leg-up in launching 3G but they are not equipped to do that.

2. iPhone 3G is available on Airtel and Vodafone and they don’t yet have the 3G capabilities. Apple should have tied up with BSNL or the spectrum should have been awarded to Airtel.

3. BSNL and MTNL failed to educate its consumers. There is no awareness really when it comes to 3G. There is a bit of skepticism too. GPRS sucks and people might think that 3G will suck too.

4. As you have mentioned are the devices. The price range for a good 3G phone should be 15K – 20K. That is where the maximum market is.

Still early days to call it a failure. Only if the spectrum is given to Reliance, Airtel and IDEA will we know the real demand for 3G.