Let me tell you why I’m pissed with Aircel. They don’t provide GPRS. This means, even though I have a feature rich Nokia N93i and a new Nokia N82, I can’t use many of the features like check emails or post my photos directly to my Flickr.
Most other major telecoms provide GPRS. So, Why not shift to another provider, you may ask? Therein, lies the problem.
I’ve been having my mobile number 98415 97744 for as long as I remember. And this is the number that all my friends and business contacts have. I don’t want to go through the pain of changing numbers.
Besides, I have my family and friends in CUG (closed user groups) and thus we get to make unlimited free phone calls. Me changing the number means, either I lose out on the free calls or make all of them change service provides too, which doesn’t sound right.
It’s a classic case of getting locked in and given a raw deal. And that’s why I’m praying for the number portability scheme to get the nod. This way, I get to show my middle finger to folks at Aircel, move to a service provider with GPRS and yet retain my old number.
The new N82 has a kickarse 5 Megapixel camera and every time I take a picture, it rubs me in by asking if I want to publish it in Flickr. I’d love to if only I have the darn GPRS connectivity.
I even thought of taking a new AirTel connection just to make use of the GPRS features. That means, I’ll have to carry two phones with me at all times….one for phone calls and the other for the GPRS features. It’d make me look even more retarded.
Aircel, I’ve been a loyal customer to you. Please stop giving me a hard time. I know you recently launched things like Tamil SMS. Nice, but there are far more important things you should focus on.
