Calling India

This is a review on Airtel's call india service that I posted as a comment on the floatingsun.net blog (by some chap in San Diego). At the bottom I will add more reviews about Reliable, Onesuite and also Reliance Calling Services [probably by the end of April].

I started using Airtel at the beginning of 2007 when they had a double down offer. So here is the good and bad of their service.

Good: Rates are lower than Reliance and your money is doubled (which is very different from what reliance offered- they were halving your usage cost - which is nice but compare this. I added $10 to Airtel , it became $20 balance and then calls are billed at 4 c (no tax).

Reliance instead takes your usage (if you are post paid) and halves it, so I used only 100 mins at 13c/min, I will get a discount of $6.5 for the month. Whereas with Airtel I get $10 advantage and that increases if you are willing to add $50 etc. (which I did eventually in Feb).

Call quality = fantastic.

Connection to network: about 90% reliable.

Website usage: Sucked in Feb. have nt been there in 2 months now. They need to improve that.

Regarding PINLESS dialing: I have been able to add one number (with reliance I could add 3 to 5 numbers).

However, this is not a BIG issue for me because MODERN CELLPHONES can store long sequences of numbers with pauses ('p') and (executions: '#' signs) so I can program a sequence into my phone for each family member.
E.g.
Speed dial 1 on cell phone is assigned to my girlfriend (let us say she is in Delhi and has a mobile no = 98 XXX YYY ZZ

1 = Airtel tollfree no + pause, pause pause + 4 digit PIN # + pause pause pause + 00 91 98 XXX YYY ZZ#

So how it works is, the "pauses" can be inserted in (Sony and motorola phones) by holding down the "7" key till it changes to "p".

I insert 3-4 pauses which gives you 3-4 seconds before the tones (PIN or Delhi no) are sent to the Airtel system. The # key executes that number.

Sometimes in system delay cases it asks me to enter the India phone no again, but I have never had problem authenticating the PIN and entering the system.

Further you can also program this sequence to a voice dial if you have that on your cell, then you dont have to dial any digits at all. just say "Call Sweetie" or "Call Ankur" or Call Kareena" and your hitech phone will do the rest for you.

Just dont voice program names like Shehanshah Jahangir, system might trip! :)
Welcome to Voice dialing!