I used to use Reliance till a while ago when I bought my new phone-Motorola L9. I’ll write the review of the phone in a few days. The dealer at HotSpot persuaded me to try Idea. This was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m totally fed up of Idea’s services. I’ve been using Idea for a few months and can’t stand it anymore. I really appreciate the patience of people who stick to Idea.
A few days ago, I was sitting in my room when my phone went out of coverage. This is normal with Idea and it usually gets a signal in a few seconds. But that time was different. I tried restarting my phone but it didn’t work. I had to wait for 30 minutes before my phone was back in coverage area.
Another fact that I hate about Idea is the GPRS and WAP connection which refuses to load many WAP sites and is charged at Rs0.02 per KB which is too much as compared to Airtel’s 1.5p/KB. This means that using applications like Cellity Free SMS is impractical on IDEA.
Have you ever tried calling an Idea phone when it is switched off? The message is- “The Idea you are trying to call is either switched off or out of service area”. They don’t even get to know whether the subscriber has switched off his phone or is out of service area. This is not what a national mobile network should be like.
Another reason why Idea is the worst mobile network in the country is that they charge 26% taxes on top-ups.I recently topped up with Rs100 and received a talk-time of Rs74.Isn’t is disgusting?What sort of top-up is that supposed to be.Reliance charges about 11.5% and Airtel prepaid about 12% but 26% is too much.Idea customers should have a national protest against this torture.
People in my family have tried all sorts of mobile networks. Airtel and Reliance are a class apart when compared to Idea. Vodafone is much better than Idea but ranks lower to Reliance and Airtel. My dad has even tried MTNL’s Trump connection and it is much better than Idea.
Overall, I would advise you to stay away from Idea even if you desperately need a mobile connection and have no other option. If I were asked to write a positive sponsored review on Idea for $50 I would never do that in public interest.
I have an advice for all current Idea users. Throw away your SIM card immediately and switch to Airtel for GSM and Reliance if you want to use CDMA.
Seriously, Airtel’s networks rocks! Nobody else matches their coverage spread.