A month ago I switched from a Blackberry to my Motorola RAZR and one of the first things I looked into was which data plan I should get for my phone. I chose after a lot of research and just wanted to share my opinions on what I thought was best for me and would really suit most people.
Almost a year and a half ago the Government sold all of the major telecom companies 3G licences allowing India to move into the world of 3G. Today most of the networks are fully optimized and work without a hitch and I thought I should take the time out to see if its worth upgrading to the carrier's 3G service. I looked up five of the largest mobile carriers, Airtel, Vodafone, Aircel, Tata DOCOMO and Idea and for most of their plans you end up paying around Rs. 100 for 100MB of data which is ridiculously high. I know I use my phone excessively but even an average user could burn through 100MB within a few days. And after you burn through your meager 100MB the carriers charge around 10p/10Kb or Rs. 10 per MB!
With 2G plans where you get around 1GB for 100 rupees and the same overage charges you almost feel like you are swimming in data. I know I haven't once crossed my data limit and that with downloading apps, watching videos on Youtube and constantly being online on at least 6 different accounts 24x7.
I'm not denying that 3G is significantly faster. It offers almost 5-10x the speed of 2G depending on where you are and the network strength at that point but at the same time you end up paying almost 10x the amount of a similar 2G plan. While I normally use 2G I did test 3G for the sake of this article on both Airtel and Vodafone and found no significant speed increases in browsing the web, checking Facebook or chatting with friends (which is really what we spend 90% of our time on anyway). Of course when downloading apps or streaming videos on the internet I was able to pull much faster download speeds but 2G isn't really that bad at either one of those tasks either.
I know many people are switching to newer 3G, or in some cases even 4G, phones but I feel it's not worth paying 10x more for roughly the same speed and usage capabilities. For those looking into newer data plans I recommend sticking to the more reasonably priced 2G plans which will net you a lot more bandwidth and if you ever really need a 3G connection most carriers offer packet plans (small amounts of data which last for a day). The only situation in which I would recommend even looking into 3G plans is if a phone from a carrier which offers special plans for those phones as they tend to be well priced.
Do you have a different experience with mobile internet or feel that the 3G plans are worth it? Leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments.
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