iPhone Hook Up Hell in India
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Bringing and unlocked iPhone to India seemed like a good idea at the time. We thought that if we couldn’t get to an Internet Café, we would at least be able to check our email. It is three weeks into our trip and we have finally managed to make our iPhone and Data Plan work.
Here is what we had to go through to make our iPhone work in India.
1 – Go to at least 3 VodaPhone outlets, an Airtel and Reliance dealer to talk about the iPhone prepaid plan.
2 – Have everyone tell you that you can’t use your iPhone and that they don’t do prepaid Data plans.
3 – Go back to the outlet after you look up forums online and see that you can actually use your iPhone.
4 – Have the dealer tell you that yes you can use your iPhone, but you will have to go to the town an hour away to have them connect it because they cannot here
5 – Take the bus to Margao and find the Vodaphone dealer. Have them tell you that the person that looks after the iPhone is not here and you have to come back later tonight. You can’t come back later tonight, because you have to catch the bus back to Patnem.
6 – Have them at sell you a SIM Card for 500 Rupees plus air time worth 222 Rupees.
7 – Find out that the SIM Card does not work, but you already bought it, so you have to keep it.
8 – Have them give you instructions on how to connect the data plan just in case you somehow make it work on your own.
9 – Go back to Patnem, look up the problem online and see that the SIM Card not working on an iPhone is common. You must reload the new software again and re-jailbreak the phone and re-unlock the phone. Then you pray that it works.
Lucky for us, it works!
Start all over again
1 – We then type the message that the representative told us to send to the number 144 – ACT IDATA … nothing happens.
2 – Go to Vodaphone the next day in Choudy (near Patnem). Find our that the SIM card should have only cost 25 Rs and that they can indeed hook up an iPhone. (a few days ago they said the opposite.)
3 – Buy 199 Rs worth of airtime and text a message to 144. We are told that it will be working within 24 hours.
4 – Ride our bikes to a nearby beach and receive a text stating that they cannot complete our transaction.
5 – Phone Vodaphone customer care 4 more times to receive different instructions.
6 – Finally talk to a woman at Tech Support who states that all of our information was wrong and we need to text ACT IPHONE to 144 and that our 199Rs that we just paid for our data plan is useless.
7 – Transfer to Customer Care to have them move that 199Rs Data time to talk time which we can then put towards our iPhone data time.
8 – Customer care tells us that the information we received from tech support is wrong and they cannot transfer the 199Rs and that the iPhone does not work.
9 – We ask to speak to someone else and they repeat like a robot, “I suggest that you go to a Vodaphone Dealer, I suggest that you go to a VodaPhone Dealer”…etc. They refuse to help us and we are infuriated.
10 -Go back to the Vodaphone dealer in Choudy and tell him our problem. Luckily, he is the only sane phone dealer in India and he transfers the 199Rs over for us. We use that to buy 199Rs worth of data time and then we take a chance and text DATA I PHONE 144.
Hallelujah it is a miracle!
We have data, a cell phone that works and it only cost us 921 Rupees for a card and airtime that should have only cost 224 Rs.
Tips
Never go to the Vodaphone store in Margao, they blatantly ripped us off. I understand people trying to make a buck from corner stores or markets, but from the actual Vodaphone dealer in a city, that is just criminal.Buy a Sim card for 25 Rs. It works even on an iPhone.
By air time and type DATA IPHONE to the number 144. No matter what everyone else says, text that phrase, nothing else works.
When you buy airtime for talking and texting (and data for iPhone), buy it in increments of
- 111 Rs
- 222 Rs
- 333 Rs
If you don’t buy these exact numbers, you will make one phone call and use up all of your minutes in one shot. Nobody could explain why, they just stressed to buy these amounts.
Forget about trying to launch a complaint with VodaPhone, they will just repeat some phrase to you like a robot.
Fees
- Incoming calls and texts – Free
- Local calls are 1 Rs per minute
- Roaming calls are 1.50 Rs per minute
- International Texts are 5Rs each
- To call Canada is 6.50 Rs per minute.
- To Call US, South East Asia and Landlines in Europe, Australia and New Zealand 6.50 Rs per minute
- Africa, Gulf and Mobile phones in Europe Australia and New Zealand 9.19 per minute
- Data 10 kb free – after that 5p per kb
- 1 Canadian Dollar = 43 Rs
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I am laughing reading this. Brings back memories of just trying to get a simple SIM card (no data plan) to work in India. We got one in Allepey, Kerala and it worked great…until the company disconnected it because the shop “forgot” to turn in our paperwork to the provider. By the time this happened, we were in Chandigarh (thousands of miles away in the north) and the same provider said, “Sorry. There is nothing we can do. That is a different region from us.” Great!
Fortunately, we had hooked up with an Indian friend by this time and he was a bit embarrassed by the whole thing so he went in and bought us another SIM card with his Indian ID (easier than if foreigner). Lo and behold, it worked for the rest of our time in India.
I’m glad you were able to get it to work in the end, even if it did cost a bit more and you had a few more headaches to deal with. It will be nice to have and to avoid the hot internet cafes with 50 people squished into a small space.
Safe travels!
.-= Audrey´s last blog ..Tarija, Bolivia: The Lowdown on Bolivian Wine =-.
Wow — those are some impressive hoops to jump through. The last time we traveled long-term, we were without any type of phone. It was liberating. Although, I have to admit — having just got back from Mexico, we really appreciated having it there. Admittedly, I don’t know what we’ll do come our round-the-world trip. Likely we’ll just take an unlocked handset for emergencies and the occasional text.
.-= Daniel´s last blog ..What We’re Reading: December 18, 2009 =-.
Wow!! Thank you for chronicle your trouble journey to get your iphone to work. I’m glad it works out for you.
.-= Amy @ The Q Family´s last blog ..Trekaroo KidsMobile Travel to San Diego =-.
This takes me right back to India – you had me lauging and wincing right with you. Ah, India
Glad you got it working though, that is going to be so incredibly helpful – and the data and talk plan really isn’t that bad like I thought it could be. What a bummer that you had to re-jailbreak it – that’s going to get really old if it’s like that in every new country!
Hey guys, what about downloading the Skype application to your iPhone? Our friends put in US$28 into a Skype account for us, and even after using it to make a few calls to our bank and a 20-minute call (for US$0.20!)to my mum’s cell phone, we have US$27 left! It works as long as your iPhone can receive a WiFi signal. I think you can start off with smaller amount in your Skype account if you don’t plan to use it too often. Do check it out – it’s definitely ALOT less painful than getting a SIM card in India!
.-= Yi Lin´s last blog ..How Not To Get Bikini-Ready In 6 Months =-.
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Oh, I forgot to add that the Skype app will work anywhere in the world so u dont hv to buy a sim card ea time u go to a diff ctry. The app costs nothing to download fr the Apple online store.
.-= Yi Lin´s last blog ..No Food Except Jam =-.
Hi Yi Lin
We have the skype app for our iphone, but as we understand it, you must have a wifi connection for it to work. While we have had some luck with wifi in India, it isn’t everywhere, and for most…we need a password. do you know a way around this? Any info would be appreciated. Cheers!
I take it there is not alot of WiFi in India? I believe there is a Skype for iPhone now.
I have an older HTC – WIndows Mobile phone, and try to avoid any data charges by using VoIP and Skype.
.-= brian´s last blog ..Best Gift You Can Give – Is To Not Be There?!?! =-.
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Hi guys, yeah, you definitely need access to WiFi to use the Skype app on your phone. But it’s amazing how many places have wireless nowadays – we have been pretty surprised in South America so far, and have managed to connect to the Internet at the most unexpected places. Hopefully it’s the case with India too!
.-= Yi Lin´s last blog ..Best Beach In The World =-.
Thanks Yi Lin, we have been using our computers for wifi and have loved it. Hopefully we will get to use the wifi on our iphone in an unexpected place soon. Thanks for all of the info!
Haha, wow that is some nightmare you guys have had over here. I had someone get me an unlocked iPhone from the states and initially I was in the same boat as you since I couldn’t get the GPRS service to work.
However, after a couple of calls to the customer care I was told to simply send a text saying ACT IPHONE to 144 – lo and behold my internet was working within 10 mins.
Maybe I was just lucky….
Great post! This post is very informative and should be very helpful. I’ll be going to India next week and will take this with me as a resource if I should run into any problems.
Out of curiosity, what method did you use to unlock your iPhone? I’m overwhelmed by the amount of instructions online with different techniques to do it and want to be sure that I use the correct technique so that the SIM cards over there will work.
Hi Brian, we used blackrain to unlock the iphone. It is pretty easy. Dave did it and he is not here to explain it, but I am sure that if you look it up you will be able to figure it out. I know, it is stressful. We bought the iphone specifically for our travels, so it was a big expense to not have it work. Luckily it has all worked out and we have loved it! The data plan is working perfectly too!
Much ado about nothing is all I can say.
Been using an iphone since the last 2 years in India.
All you had to do was get a prepaid simcard of any carrier and then ask them for the APN to put in your network settings for GPRS (no 3g here yet). Iphone or any other phone it will work.
Has nothing to do with you unlocking, jailbreaking again and again.
A simple rest all network settings would have sufficed.
Its a matter of knowing what you had to do in the first place. The iphone is not very common in India hence the mixed answers – especially when you ask the wrong questions!
Well, first of all we do have to unlock our phone. In Canada, the u.s and other countries our phones are locked to a carrier so this is necessary. As well most carriers in India will not let you hook up an Iphone on a prepaid connection. We looked into several of them and they let us know it was not possible. If you did some investigation you would see that simply hooking up a GPRS service like Vodaphone Live does not work on the IPhone. You must activate it separately with their special code. Regardless of weather the Iphone is popular or not if they offer it for sale they should know how to hook it up. I’m sure asking can we get Data on our Iphone is not the wrong question. If it is perhaps you could enlighten our readers as to the proper question to ask.
What I was trying to say is that since your iphone was already unlocked you didnt need to go thru that process again as you mentioned in your post. Its not connected with why your internet was not working in the first place.
The iphone does work on a simple gprs plan like Vodaphone live. I have been using it for the past 2 years myself! All you have to do is put in the APN in gprs settings yourself instead of asking the Vodaphone guys for the settings for an Iphone. They have been instructed to give a more expensive plan to Iphone users like they do to all Blackberry users hence they stick you with it.
I hope this helps.
Mk1 Thanks for the information. At least now others can learn from our mistakes and your advice. It is true, we did pay much more for the plan than we should have, but at least now we know. We go back to India soon, so things should go easier the second time around.
After a year an a half seems that things have change a little in India. I didn’t have much trouble like you did to activate my iPhone 4, but of course it is not so simple yet, it is still India. All you need is to bring with you a passport copy, address proof and a passport picture to get a sim card which cost around 40 rupees. If you have an iPhone 4 you will need to cut the sim card to fit in the phone. Very simple, I did it already so many times without any trouble. The one month “unlimited” internet plan cost 98 rupees! You can read in detail about getting a internet data plan in India here: http://path2yoga.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-stay-connected-with-mobile.html