Sorry i don't have stats to prove that..but Reliance has more subscribers than Vodafone. And it has few of "world's largest in its kitty"
*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operators_of_the_Asia_Pacific_region#India
*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliance_Communications
Yeah I definitely know about its subscriber base.
But we DO need to realize that Indian Industry calculates subscriber base by using net amount of SIM cards sold and not total active connections over past 1 year.
Most ppl buy reliance sims and throw them away mainly due to offers like Rs.20 for 4 sims, with Rs. 50 tt each and so on.
But coming to positives of Reliance from personal experience,
- Coverage is better than competing low cost telecos
- Low cost (duh) plans. But TATADOCOMO, Aircel and Uninor all beat it in this department but have lower coverage
- Availability of free gprs tricks for mobile
- 500 national sms/day for Re. 1/day
- Re1/3min plan seriously cheap for those making loooong calls
- cheap roaming calls
- free roaming sms
Negatives are:
- Call plans not as cheap as others. 1ps/sec too expensive compared to 0.66ps/sec or 1ps/2sec offered by others
- No discounted onnet calls by default
- GPRS with PC Connectivity is still expensive
- crappy SMS service. Concatenated messages often arrive with only first part.
- Not enough special packs
- SMS'es rental Rs. 30/month when competitors have it at Rs. 0/month.
- Points 1 and 6 mean lot of potential savings elsewhere.
But looking at AirTel, Voda and Reliance plans, I pick Reliance as the best Pan-India operator. AirTel and Voda have crap plans.
BSNL is the only choice if you wish to make calls from Leh in kashmir or some remote village in Kerala. Its THE provider I would choose if coverage was the only factor and money was not when it comes to getting a connection.
