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Friday, July 01, 2016

Enable National Roaming to Get Network Access on Reliance 4G SIM


Whatever the loyal fans of CDMA are thinking, CDMA will continue to be ceased in India. Starting from BSNL and MTNL which has pretty low subscriber base, the largest CDMA operator of the country – Reliance Communications continues to shut down its CDMA services across the country in the favor of LTE.

Before the migration RCom promised CDMA users will be shifted to 4G, but post-migration users were actually shifted to GSM platform and in circles with no 3G spectrum for RCom people are struggling with 2G. It seems RCom has made a fast boot of CDMA to 4G without a proper plan.

Many users who are using R-CDMA as their primary numbers suffered the most. But there are lots of R-CDMA users who are enjoying fast and cheap data over RCom’s EVDO platform, and many of them are using non-RUIM based imported smartphones. With the closure of CDMA services their smartphones had become just a paperweight.

Post migration many users were not able to connect to internet over R-GSM. RCOM stores were able solve this issue by a software patch installed in the newly replaced 4G enabled Smart SIM. But even after patch some users’ data connectivity to Reliance 3G/2G was not restored (note Reliance 4G is yet to be launched to these users). According to RCOM customer care you must enable national roaming via ‘SIM TOOLKIT’ to get access to Reliance 2G/3G.


Why? Reliance Telecom, a subsidiary of RCom provides GSM services in Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, North East, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar. While RCom offers pan India CDMA services. Hence the MNC codes of CDMA & GSM services in these circles are different. For example, in Kolkata Reliance Telecom (GSM) is operated as 404 83 while R-CDMA as 405 12. Now the new 4G SIM are coming as Reliance 4G/405 12 but as 4G is yet to be launched, they are connected to roaming partner Reliance GSM (404 83). Hence we can see ‘R’ is on always.

There is another mystery with Reliance 4G. Jio doesn’t have any 850MHz spectrum in Kolkata, however Jio 4G signals are connected over all three spectrums – 2.3Ghz, 1.8Ghz and 850Mhz (as shared over Telecomtalk.info).

As RCom and Jio are in an agreement to share networks, Jio LTE over 850Mhz has to be using Reliance CDMA’s existing spectrum. But with new 4G SIM we are not able to register our SIM to Jio 4G network.

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As somebody shared over internet, we can see the ETA of Reliance 4G in different circles in the following picture:


In the mean time RCOM has shared the 4G data plans for WiPod customers in Mumbai. Later Maharastra and Andra Pradesh's tariff for WiPod data as well as smartphone tariff plans were added.

However as of 1st July, 10PM this page of Rcom website is not opening:  http://www.rcom.co.in/Rcom/personal/4G/

Before the launch in Mumbai (ETA 30th June, 09:30am ), RCom put a time counter on their website. However after the ETA came, the counter was reset for another 24 hours. And now it's removed as well as 4G tab from the menu bar.




Reliance Communications (RCOM) - Mumbai - WiPod Data Plans :

Pay As You Go : 4p/10kB

Prepaid plans :

1GB for 2 days - Rs 98
1GB for 28 days - Rs 297
2GB for 28 days - Rs 501
3GB for 28 days - Rs 698
5GB for 28 days - Rs 1099
7GB for 28 days - Rs 1399
10GB for 28 days - Rs 1857

Postpaid Plans: (monthly plans) 

2GB - Rs 450
3GB - Rs 650
5GB - Rs 850
7GB - Rs 1100
10GB - Rs 1500


Note: These views expressed are based on my personal experience. 
This story was first published on Telecomtalk.info.

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