With the number of readers adding up each week and the content increasing, we @ TeleGyaan thought that you needed a change. And here we are with a new look and some cool new stuff. We will have polls running through and also some cool new plans shaping up in the coming month.

So watch out for this space and keep visiting. As a first initiative, we at our end would want to know your needs. Share your thoughts with us. But for the moment, enjoy the browsing experience and do not forget to participate in the poll  “Rate Our Makeover”.

- TeleGyaan Team

MTNL has launched a new SIM kit on their Trump prepaid service called the “Hungama Trump SIM Kit”. The SIM card comes for Rs 310 wherein the subscriber gets a talk time of Rs 125 and a validity of 30 days.

The outgoing call charge on all MTNL local networks is 10 paise and for other networks it is Re 1. The STD charge to any network is Re 1. Local SMS would be charged at 25 paise whereas national SMS would be charged at Re 1. To conclude, this plan works out best for one’s who make calls to other MTNL networks.

Vodafone is the latest entrant to reduce its local outgoing charges for its prepaid users after Airtel and BPL mobile. The local outgoing charges have been reduced to Re 1 but unfortunately the SMS charges have not been reduced, they still prevail to be Rs. 1.50.

To activate the above calling rates on your Vodafone number the prepaid subscriber needs to SMS ONE to 56565 (toll free). This service is free of cost and can be activated on any Vodafone prepaid number.

Being connected to the Internet through your mobile phone is a great idea, especially when you are on the move or away from home. Operators have tried to pull in many users based on this proposition and have managed o succeed. What we did was a comparative study of the operators providing such service to users.

Note: This study is done as per the rates applicable in Mumbai circle.

Airtel Mobile Office:

This service comes for a flat fee of Rs.399 and provides 100 MB of free surfing.

Trump GPRS:

The operator offers a choice when it comes to choosing a service. Here are the choices.

Reliance CDMA is on a roll. It has launched this new SMS pack for its CDMA users which provides SMS at rates as low as 1 Paise. Yes that’s true. Here is what the operator has come up with.

For Rs.95, the users can enjoy 5,000 SMS’s for a month. Yes that comes upto 166 messages per day. One may ask the question, “is it really needed?”. If you don’t need so much the operator has 2 other options where it provides 100 SMS’s for Rs.25 and 30 SMSes for Rs.10. All these packs have a validity of 30 days.

Rs. 95 - 5,000 SMS

Rs. 25 - 100 SMS

Rs. 10 - 30 SMS

SMS Pack is also available from Airtel.

‘Happy 2008’ is a new pre-paid pack launched by Tata Teleservices. The pack is a Rs. 299 starter pack for new pre-paid subscribers and comes with a validity of 2008 days (about five-and-a-half years) and a talk time of Rs 2. So, basically the subscriber is being charged for the validity and not for the talk time.

Calls between Tata numbers will be charged 39 paise a minute by day and 9 paise a minute by night whereas calls to other mobile subscribers will be charged 49 paise a minute. Calls to landline will be charged 99 paise a minute. There will be a daily rental of Re 1 to avail the above mentioned calling rates.

Happy 2008 subscribers also have a choice of three handsets — Huawei C2605 (priced Rs 699), ZTE 336 (Rs 1,199) and Huawei C2802 (Rs 1,199)

On the 7th of January we had a post discussing a community on Orkut, which was auctioning numbers. On the same lines Tata Indicom has launched an official version of the same. The operators are in search of new avenues to make some money. What better than having VIP numbers auctioned! Tata Indicom’s Bid to Win is a service wherein the users can auction for the premium number after signing up for an account. The winners would be notified through sms or email.

The numbers shown in the banner on its website are quite tempting. Some of them go like this: 9246010786, 924610999, and 9246100007. So if you have any plans of taking a new connection or are a current Tata users, just logon and bid.

Bid to Win

The New Year has gone by and so are the other exciting things with it. But one operator is still in the festive mood and has rolled out a New Year Bonanza Scheme. That’s MTNL for you. MTNL’s Dolphin service is now offering 30 MMS free to its current users (Free GPRS plan 4). This offer would be available from the 1st of January for a period of 3 months.

Now what after you are done sending the 30 MMS? The extra messages that you send would be charged @ Rs.2 instead of the current charge of Rs.3. The operator has also slashed data packet charges to half, charging just a paisa for a kb compared to the current 2 paise. To add some flair to the offerings, the operator has pepped up its wap site. With cool additions catered to suit the users, this one is a good jump for the good.

Wap link: www.mauj.com

Let me start up with Reliance. We don’t know what to expect from them in the coming months, but surely they do deserve a warm welcome from us as they have received the start-up spectrum and can now operate in 22 circles they applied for. This also makes them the first company to operate on dual technology.

Other than Reliance, Vodafone, Idea and Aircel have also been allotted the required spectrum to start their operations in their respective circles.

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Every operator is trying to welcome 2008 in a special way. And BPL Mobile is doing the same thing. They have announced that all pre-paid users can now enjoy calls and SMS anywhere in India at a standard rate of Re. 1.

Subscribers interested in this offer will have to send a SMS India to 50505 (toll-free) which would give them more details on One India Prepaid. There’s a daily rental of Re.1 charged if the scheme is activated (Rs 30 would be deducted as advance rental. After 30 days, Re. 1/day rental would be applicable).

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