Originally Posted by
nmenaker
I assume your in india, having delhi listed as a stop?
I have to say, my experience earlier this year in india was quite different. I had no problem picking up a 3G SIM and it was very cheap, I think 15$ for the card and 30 days of 2GB worth of data. (I think the prepay data charge was like 5$ for the month) Took about 10 minutes, came in a little packet that had the apn infor on it/in it. When put in an unlocked cell phone, the APN info came up as it acquired network, when I put it into the dongle I had brought, i had to put the APN in but then it worked fine.
I had 3G in most cities of course and then some random places like Ranthambor (sp) but mostly 2G along motorways and some smaller out of city locations, but skype till worked from the cell phone fine. In delhi, mumbai, jodhpur, jaipur and agra I used it to stream netflix, from slingbox and do skype calls and also had about four devices connected to my mobile router so the bandwidth seemed to work fine for that.
Which carrier did you use? I used TATA
I wasn't complaining about the cost. The biggest problem was not having a local ID. Local vendors would not accept anything but an Indian ID such as Voter's Registration card. This was in a small town between Gurgaon and Alwar, right off NH-8. The people I was with did not have their ID with them. I was told that Driver's License is not an acceptable proof of address.
Putting in the APN is not problem if you know what it is. No one seemed to know what the APN was, although they were willing to sell data service on Airtel, iDEA, Reliance and Vodaphone. Novatel modem did not respond to a reliance SIM at all. I bought an iDEA SIM. I did ask for TATA. The vendor did not have a TATA SIM.
As far as 3G accessibility is concerned, I was told that 3G coverage is spotty. A friend of mine, who had a dedicated reliance data card, told me that his 3G signal was in and out. I have no doubt that you would get adequate 3G service in major cities. Your experience also seems to indicate that one would have to be content with 2G service if one is not in major cities.
Where did you get your SIM, and how? Since I was not in Delhi, I was dependent on little corner shops.