3G

Its here.

Is the hoopla justified? I have been drooling over 3G for a long time and that's the reason why all my phones over the past 2 years have been 3G enabled, in anticipation of a data revolution that is supposed to hit us.

And now I have been on the 3G network for the past 12 hours. The excitement though, was short lived and I have been the fool at the end of it.

Since I am a Vodafone India customer, let me share my experience solely with respect to Vodafone. Step 1: the activation. Although its a soft launch and customer can experience 3G at the regular 2G prices till its officially rolled out, I was happy to get it. Vodafone said that 3G will be activated within 24 hours and I was very happy when they did it within 9 hours. Probably, the highest point of the 3F experience and has been a downhill ever since. More so, that I have already moved back to my EDGE network, just 12 hours into 3G eight of which were spent sleeping.

I am a BlackBerry customer with unlimited internet plan but Vodafone asked me to activate its internet service called Vodafone Mobile Connect to use 3G. What it means? I have already paid for internet through by BB plan but for 3G I am supposed to pay more. Mind you it is not unlimited even, download charges are exorbitant. A rental of Rs199 and download charges of 5p/10kb.

So, I have two internet plans on my phone.

Video streaming (Youtube, etc) on my EDGE network has been working fairly well with no buffer time. Full marks to Vodafone.

The main idea for me to get 3G was live TV. Vodafone has a Vodafone 3G service listed under its 3G services and asks customers to sms TV to 111 to get it. Charges are duly specified.

To my surprise, and this is where the problems began, when I tried to download Vodafone TV, it said that I must have Vodafone Live to do so. Vodafone Live is the most basic internet plan which let's you surf only wap sites through your phone. Can you explain this, Voda?

So, to try Vodafone TV, even after getting 3G and paying through the nose I have to get another basic internet service and pay rent for that too. Mind you again, data charges are excluded.

Icing on the cake was when Voda said that activating Vodafone Live will take 24 hours. So I can't download Vodafone TV till then.

3G is being wasted till then and my BB plan is working on 3G, surpassing the unlimited BB plan that I have paid for.

I downloaded SPB TV to experience the live TV!

This is where the biggest disappointment came and you can please check and let me know if you face the same issue or did it work flawlessly on your phone.

SPB TV did not work on my 3G service. When I tried to use it over WiFi at my home, it worked as smoothly as Kim Kardashian's ass. It did. And please don't ask me how I know the smoothness of her ass, really.

I am thoroughly disappointed by Vodafone and its no good 3G service.

As for me, I hope I am able to catch the Cricket World Cup on Vodafone TV if it is downloads and works well. Beyond that, 3G is useless for me.

Back to my unlimited EDGE or 2G BB internet plan.

Thank you.

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