Category Archives: Mobiles

Bsnl 3G data card the best there is, work on mac

Posted on October 10, 2010 by prasanth

I have been using bsnl 3G data card on my 13 inch macbook for the past two months. And i am pretty happy with it, here are the reasons why.

1. Its Truly Unlimited and not  15 Gb unlimited like Tataphoton and Reliance netconnet highspeed.

2. Its Unlimited even when roaming

3. It works pretty well on a Mac

4. It has 3G network in most parts of India already

5. You can recharge Bsnl 3G data card online using http://portal.bsnl.in

6. No more worry about wires, modems routers. Just plug it in and get internet anywhere.

7. Its cheapest 3G unlimited out there.Just two months back you had to pay 3000 Rs for 1 month for unlimited, now they have dropped the price to 1499 Rs. Which is the lowest i think any 3G unlimited package will ever get. Others might offer cheaper unlimited packaged but they will be crippled unlimited not truly unlimited.

Hardware

It looks like a big usb pen drive with a small removable cover on the back which hides the bsnl #3G sim. There is a slot for a memory card which when inserterd can be used as a pen drive with this bsnl data card. All the other data cards also provide this feature, its a helpful feature which i have not yet used. There is one led light on the device which blinks green when the device is connected to the internet. When its switched off it glows red.The device costs 2500 Rs and comes with a 500 Mb free usage. Unlimited data plan costs 1499 Rs.

Installation

On windows once you plug it in, it shows as a bsnl drive just click on it and the installation begins. Once the installation is done. It will show you the dialer and you select internet and click the connect button that’s it. You are online with 3G speeds.

On mac once you plug it in it shows up as a cd drive. Just copy the mac folder on to your desktop and open the installation file in it. Which installs and puts a blue 3G icon app in the application folder. Just click it and the dialer will load. Wait a few second while the data card detects the sim and show you the network.

On mac you have to manually type some settings in, once you do you are online.Click on the “default configuration” and select edit configuration.Click the “+” icon and make a new connection give it a name, any name.Now put the settings shown in the picture.

Telephone Number : *99***#Username & Password : Leave blankAPN : bsnlnetThe dns settings are not necessary, i use them because they make it a little bit faster. Those are Google DNS settings.Save these settings.Now select the setting you just created and click connect. You should be online.One more thing you should notice this is for both mac & pc’s in settings on the dialer. Select “3G only” otherwise it will keep going to 2G if coverage in your area is weak.

If its on 3G it should show this.

Verdict

If its in 3G you can get speeds up t0 3mbps. Not on all the site or downloads, but most of them. Browsing you will never have to wait for a page load. And youtube standard quality videos can be seen without buffering.You can download5 mb in 1 minute30 mb in 5 minutes100 mb in 15 minutesLast month i used around 60 Gb mostly watching youtube videos and download podcasts. This month its up to 50 Gb and i have 10 more days to go.With such cheap data plans and these speeds i don’t know why any one would look else where. If bsnl can keep up with the demand and speed as more and more users start using this service. Its game over for Tataphoton and Reliance netconnet highspeed.We were waiting for the future and its here. What are you waiting for get Bsnl 3G data card….

Update ….Bsnl has reduced the unlimited 3G plans further to 700 Rs per month. So let the pricing war begin…

Posted in Computers & Internet, Gadgets, Mobiles | 31 Comments

Using Other sims with bsnl 3G data card

Posted on August 31, 2010 by prasanth

I know many want to know how to use other Sim’s with bsnl 3g data card (usb modem). My review of bsnl 3G will be coming soon. Bsnl 3g data card is the only one that allows the bsnl sim to be removed. If you remove the back you can take out bsnl 3g sim and use any other sim even non 3g sim. You can even connect using the bsnl 3g software, no hack required.

Just change the settings to the settings of the particular sim and connect as you would with bsnl 3g sim. I tested this with aircel.For aircel the settings are

Telephone Number : *99#

Username & Password : Leave blank

APN : aircelgprs

I got pretty good speeds, these speeds were as good as the 2g data card speeds. So when you need cheap internet connectivity use your aircel, airtel or any other sim to connect to internet using this method.

It only cost 97 Rs per month to get internet on aircel sim. This method could be a good back up when you don’t have internet through other means or when you don’t want to pay for one full month.It even works on mac’s

Update

Here is a video i recently made to prove to everyone that it does indeed work.

Update

Here is the bsnl software for bsnl 3G data card.

Click on the link below which will take you to Google docs, from there click the file menu and download the original file which will be a zip file with the software.

Bsnl 3G software Windows Version, Mac Version, Linux Version

Posted in Mobiles | 96 Comments

Aircel is the one for your data needs

Posted on August 27, 2010 by prasanth

I am always on the look out for cheap internet usuage. So i wanted a sim that will give me unlimited internet even while roaming and has to be a prepaid sim. There are not many option out there. There are some unlimited options, but the have a fair use policy, which means its not unlimited. So after my exhausting search here is the winner.Aircel has the best unlimited gprs plan out there, its 97 Rs per month. This is truly unlimited, no fair use policy bull shit here. I have used nearly 5 Gb for this month alone and its still working. I have been using this service for the past 1 year. I always use more than 5 Gb per month. The best part is it even works unlimited while roaming. This is the best option for a data sim especially if you are in the south of India.I wouldn’t recommend it as your phone sim, because they have very little coverage. But for you data and internet need this is it. It even works as a usb data card sim, if you use it with bsnl 3g usb modem. Its got good speed too, i got 80 kbps with the data card.Now others are offering unlimited plans, but aircel been doing that for the past one year.By they way if you want to know what i use the 5 Gb per month for. Its mostly for podcasts, i use listen app on my HTC hero. If you are using android phones with auto sync turned on, it will suck up quite a bit of data.

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How to get speech to text in HTC hero 2.1 india

Posted on June 29, 2010 by prasanth

This feature is disabled in India update of 2.1, which was released few days back.With speech to text you can speak something and the phone will convert that to text, so you could use this text to search web or send sms etc.Before you give it a try, its cool feature but doesn’t work that well in India.May its because of the India accent and you also get quite a few server errors. Its because they don’t have their speech to text servers in India etc. Now i know why HTC hero 2.1 update didn’t come with this feature. It would have been a bad user experience.If you still want to get this feature here is how to get this feature.Go to android market place and download this program “Speak N’ Send“. Once you install this app when you open this app it will ask you to download “voice search”, its not available in market place.So click the below link in the app and download from the apps own server. Once you download this program and install it. Open the program and Speech to text should be working.You can use it in this program or in regular google search on the device.Download Handcent sms program which will help you send sms using speech to text.Sorry for the bad screenshots this is the easiest way to get android screenshots, others are too complicated. I used my laptop webcam.

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HTC Hero gets 2.1 update in India

Posted on June 28, 2010 by prasanth

There is a thing or two other companies could learn about how to update a mobile device.HTC did a wonderful job of updating the HTC hero. First you get a small update which allows you to download firmware over the air. Then few days later they sent the 2.1 android update.I thought it would be like any other updates, it will completely reset my device. So i backed up everything on my phone that i wanted to my sd card using astro file explorer.HTC update didn’t reset anything. All my apps, settings, contacts, calendar were there.But it was disappointing that not all the features are available.No speech to text – this was one of the features I wantedNo live wallpaperWhat do you get in the 2.1 updateFew new HTC widgets (And the ability to download new htc widgets)To download new widgets go to widgets and look at the first link, it will allow you to download more widgets. try the notes widget its really cool.Improved market place now you can search better and also see screen shots of apps, Before installing them.There is a new navigation app, not yet tried out.You can now see what programs are using your battery etc.Now there is bluetooth file send & receive support. If you want to receive any thing from other mobiles or computers now you can do it through bluetooth. But its useful only for small files like mp3 etc. If you want to get anything bigger on to the device its still better to do it via usb. It took me 22 minutes to get a 150 mb file through bluetooth.There are quite a few small one but they are just normal updates nothing to write home about.That’s pretty much it.Pretty sad that not all the features of 2.1 android are ported over to this update. But the way they are updating the firmware for these devices is something special.I think the speech to text has problems with recognizing indian accent and may be that’s why they have not added it.The only issue i am facing with this update is wifi is not working on mine. It doesn’t show my wifi access point. i have reset the phone. And tried all the suggestions in android forums.But still no luck…

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HTC hero gets update in India

Posted on June 22, 2010 by prasanth

HTC hero gets OAU (over the air update) in India. This evening I got a pop up on my HTC hero android phone. It said system update and asked me to connect to wi-fi for faster download. But I went ahead and updated it on gprs connection.It took about 5 minutes, so I am guessing it’s around 10 mb download. So what are they offering in this update, nothing much.They say it has some you tube and system updates. But once it downloaded and installed the update. It restarted, I backed all my stuff expecting the update to wipe my apps.But nothing changed, the only thing they are adding is a software update link. Which checks for new updates regularly.I heard that this is how they roll their firmware. In a couple of weeks time the 2.1 update should arrive for HTC hero in India.The firmware update will be 100 mb or bigger download, so use wi-fi when it comes.Eagerly waiting for 2.1 update, it would be cool if they skip 2.1 and directly go to 2.2 update which is the latest version of Android.

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11 Billion US dollars or 677 billion rupees for 3G in India

Posted on May 26, 2010 by prasanth

This was the amount Indian Government earned by selling 3G spectrum in India.12 Service providers bought the licenses.580 million mobile users in india at the moment.

20 million new subscribers were added in the month of march.

Since it will take at least four months for the companies to roll out 3G, it will be 660 million mobile users in India by then.

660 million users will have to pay 700 Rs each, for the mobile companies to just get the licencing fees back. We have not added the price of marketing, equipment and other expenses they need to start providing 3G.

As you know only few people take data packages on their mobiles, out of my 5 friends only two have activated the gprs service on their mobiles. I am expecting the same rate of up take in 3G service, only may be about 40% will take the data service.

Now its 264000000 mobile users even that number is extravagant. Even then it will take 2000 Rs each.

There is another problem too, there are people with more than one sim. In fact in the last two years i have changed 4 different carriers and 4 different sims. I will be taking up another sim in a few days time. This time it will be bsnl 3G sim. So that make it five connections out which only one i will be using. So that 40% i talked about could be even smaller.

So it will be long time before these companies start making profit. How many will perish and how many will succeed only time will tell…

Hope Indian government put this money to good use.

$11 Billion for Wireless Spectrum in India – NYTimes.com

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Mobile operator codes

Posted on January 31, 2010 by prasanth

If you get call from unknown numbers or if you just want to know where that last missed call was from or which network.

Check out this page, it has all mobile networks and their numbering formats in each region.

Could be helpful to know which network some of your friends are using etc.

Mobile operator codes

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BSNL Crashes GPRS Prices

Posted on January 31, 2010 by prasanth

I don’t understand what the fuzz was about. i was using bsnl unlimited for 299 at least two years back on a iphone.The only problem was it was only for post paid user and with the mobile minutes the bill came to 450 per month minimum bill.Now i switched to aircel gprs which cost 98 Rs per month unlimited.One thing i love about aircel is that i can use the unlimited gprs even when roaming. Only thing i have to be careful is to see that its on aircel network. Then no charges if its other networks its will be charged.

Unlimited: BSNL’s monthly Plan Unlimited charges Rs. 299 (Rs. 274 for prepaid users) and looks quite attractive to those who are addicted to staying connected.

BSNL Crashes GPRS Price Barriers With 5 New Packs

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Google searches 3G prospects in India

Posted on November 12, 2009 by prasanth

There was a news report recently that Google is entering the 3G spectrum auction race.

Don’t dream of getting an Google connection for your mobile. All they are trying to do is what they did in the US. They bid in the 3G auction only to make it open, once they knew it would be open they withdrew from the race.

I am not saying it’s a bad thing, they are in it to just ensure that the 3G auction will be open and the carrier don’t get too much power.

Sources in the telecom industry say Google is looking at broadband wireless access, or BWA, in the country and may participate in the auction with an Indian partner. BWA is also known as Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, or WiMAX.

Google searches 3G prospects in India

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