It's been over six months since I shifted from BSNL to Airtel 4G, fed up with the perennial connection problems faced in BSNL's 3G service.
When I went to get the Airtel 4G connection, their personnel told me 4G would only be available in the city. I took the connection nevertheless and was happy about the speed, around 8Mbps, as a postpaid 3G connection in BSNL gave only a maximum of 1.4Mbps, and prepaid giving much lesser speed.
From the beginning itself, the signals in my phone used to switch between 4G and 2G, but mainly staying on 4G. For those wondering why no 3G, it is, I believe, because Airtel doesn't have any 3G facility in Kerala but, I think, uses Idea's 3G signals instead. So, if you are in a place where Airtel 4G isn't available, it's the damn old and hopeless 2G you would get. Once I went to Varkala, a tourist destination of international repute, and found that only 2G is available there. However, I heard 4G is available for postpaid users.
But things began to change within the past month. While it was the dancing of signals between 4G and 2G before, now No Service or Out of Coverage too began to appear on my phone. Friends began saying I'm not available or is out of coverage sometimes. Then the frequency of switching increased as did the time I was out of coverage. Now, only my close friends and family bother to put in that extra effort to reach me in between the dancing of signals from 4G to 2G and Out of Coverage, and all this time I would be in the heart of Kochi itself, which is claimed to be the biggest city in Kerala. Most of the time I would be within two or three kilometres of Kaloor, a main junction in Kochi, the MG Road, or the high court. All three are part of the prime locality in Kochi and can be called the heart of Kochi so much that you need to drive through at least an hour's traffic to reach these places if you are visiting Kochi from elsewhere.
By the way, Kaloor Junction is the place where Airtel got bloggers to test their 4G service and they got around 10 or 12Mbps.
The place I currently live is around 1.5 to 2 kilometres from Kaloor Junction and the signals would have to travel only around half a kilometre through air to reach there. For the past month, I am getting only 2G signals for around half of the day, with 4G showing up consistently only in the night. All the signal bars on the phone are up in 4G and 2G and when net is turned off, meaning I live in a full-coverage area. But when I called up Airtel customer care, they first tried to portray it as my phone's fault and then claimed I live in an area that doesn't have good 4G coverage! And they took over 20 minutes to say this. It should be noted that customers have to pay for these calls too. I don't know how TRAI could approve of such a practice - a customer having to pay to talk to customer care about the lack of service of the service provider itself. It's pure injustice.
To sum up, not being able to provide good or consistent 4G coverage in an area right next to Kaloor by Airtel means all those bloggers were not telling the truth or we would have to erect a shed right under the traffic signal to enjoy 4G from Airtel consistently. By the way, I'm writing this in 2G too!
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