3G Airtel Mumbai - A review from an entity trying to be human

They say when the student is ready, the master shall appear, Similarly it takes me a hug amount of inspiration to write a blog post.

On 9th March 2011, the newspaper front page displayed a HUGE ADVERTISEMENT screaming 3G services  had started in mumbai on airtel.
Incidentally i use Airtel for the past few years as my choice of billing provider ( some day ill write on this too) .... 5 minutes later i was on the internet reading reviews from users in other cities, and what i could expect.  15 minutes later than this , i was sipping hot tea and finding instructions to start 3G services. 

This is not a post to review their services or processes. To each their own, i write this as my personal review ,raves & rants. Here it begins

Day 1:-Moments later welcome message:- everything enticing on how to select the plan with "budgetary considerations". my view is if they cared about my budget and wallet, they would have priced it free, and its not free, so it means they dont care. After reading around 10 reviews I came to the common sense conclusion the internet is a place of cut copy paste. Why ? Because 100 other links just had the same 10 or so reviews, word to word pasted same. 
Then i send across the message and activated 3G. Each one has no information about video calls, because none of these so called gurus experts have any clue, seems they were paid to write that information. i could be wrong and assuming this but then im trying to be human so dont blame me.
News:- 3G services start after following their process, No information, no user instruction.Just a small welcome message. You are supposed to carry a grin on your face watching the 3G icon under the signal strength bars and please intimate yourself that you are welcome to 3G, Then after a lot of hassle and fact finding from other 2 websites i found out 3G activation is 1 part, you are supposed to select a 3G plan exclusively elsewhere and thats another process. Complied with the same and on advice on a colleague took the 100 MB for Rs:100 basic plan. Went through this same process twice to ensure 3G services actually start.
Day1 evening i cleared all my counters in my N97 Mini. This was done to check how much MB would actually be used per day per application per click, per everything that i could understand.
 Speed tests revealed i was getting 80 kbps on my mobile ( where are the so called self proclaimed speeds of Mbps? didnt see any of those high speeds at all)
Day 2
The gods were pleased and lo behold 3G day begins, installed email application ( ensured it doesnt download full email , but only headers and that too i didnt download till now) then downloaded and installed 2 small (2 mb & 1 mb ) apps. Then surfed few websites here and there to check the speeds.  Websites opened fine ( im not satisfied as with a 3G i was expecting it to load much faster ) Checked the data useage, showed a whopping 30 MB downloaded and 2 mb uploaded ( i dont need any information on this so skip using this bit of information when u reply my ranting as per normal human tendency)
Day 2 Afternoon , im convinced airtel 3G is NOT for me, neither is AIRTEL and this is due to the high rates and the pricing policy. I am well within the trying and testing Rs:100 per 100 MB selected package.Found out a 3G welcome page exists and that incremental costs per GB are higher
Day 2 Evening, I have narrowed down MTNL as a better service provider irrespective to whatever whoever says, and would be changing from airtel to MTNL within this week. the rates are much cheaper.


My personal obervations and understandings:-

• I have not yet even done my first video call -The only reason one should ever undertake 3G is video calling and nothing else.  
• The entire gamut of airtel 3g world seems to me personally a reincarnation of a failed WAP portal, which entices you to download everything at a cost. 
• On day 2 i feel as if this entire Airtel 3G thingie is a resurrection of WAP portal. leaving aside the video calling facility.
• Totally unhappy with 3G hype. except for the benefit of video calling. 
• But happy to change this service provider to a cheaper government owned service provider. Might take Mobile Number portability (MNP) and keep the number of my yesteryears as same. 
•  I have not yet made 1 video call yet and im changing from airtel to mtnl. Hows that ?
  To end this post i repeat a few words that i had read In a business book, "take care of the eccentric first, the others dont need any more care".