Good service quality, hardly any extra facilities. Review on BSNL CellOne / Excel Mobile Operator

BSNL's CellOne/Excel billed me for Rs. 11,000 (admittedly, I had applied for a Night Saver scheme which allowed free talktime to other BSNL mobiles after 10 PM, but later it turned out they had not launched the scheme. Due th the communication gap between the BSNL officials, and the nincompoop private agents they had hired as BSNL distributors, I got stuck in this problem)

But I have gotten over this incident, and still use BSNL because the other operator in a small city Siliguri where I live, is Reliance, and the customers of Reliance are simply experiencing day by day, how low the service quality of a GSM operator can get!

As far as coverage is concerned, BSNL has excellent coverage. They have planted BTSes(Base Transceiving Stations) all along the highway so you don't get cut off. Even in the hills, there are only a few areas where the signal goes out. The voice clarity is very good and calls get through in the first or second attempt.

It's also the cheapest service around. If you opt for a 525 plan (Rs. 525 per month as rental) you then get a talktime of 40 paise per minute, or 10 paise per 15 seconds. This is quite good for a heavy user.

They also give you other services like voice mail etc. But that is the end of it.

There is no extra facility like WAP, MMS, GPRS, SMS chatting, games etc. They have not tied up with any useful SMS service provider like Yahoo!, STAR TV, or any ringtone provider like Phoneytunes etc. So you can just forget downloading polyphonic ringtones. You can get mono tunes from Rediff and Indiatimes but thats it. Polyphonic tones are not supported as our network has no GPRS support.

They also have no partnership with the contest and news operators. I can't participate in any contests or services of STAR TV (7827) and others.

All in all, BSNL is highly recommended if you want a reliable barebones mobile service. If you are a youngster or teenager, or anyone who expects FUN out of his mobile, just forget it, and opt for something like Hutch or Airtel, which is something I might do after they start operations in my town.

Cheers!