Tata Photon Prepaid Review
by Sadik on 21/03/10 at 12:43 pm
Tata photon has recently launched prepaid internet connection for their High Speed Broadband data card. Now I do have an excellent wired broadband internet connection at home (again from Tata indicom broadband) but still I went ahead and bought one for my laptop. Now I am usually carrying my laptop around and it made sense to me to have broadband internet access on the go.
The current price is Rs. 2400 which I feel is reasonable given that it was costing 3500 Rs just a month ago. Also they gave me 1 GB of free data transfer which was good that I din’t have to make another immediate expense on purchasing data transfer balance.
The installation of the software that comes with the Tata photon is pretty simple and auto-starts as soon as you plug the USB device in your USB slot. The data card I had got came from Huawei. The other option I had was of Haier. However having used a Huawei mobile before, I preferred Huawei. Once the software called “Huawei Access Manager” was succesfully installed, I needed to create a new connection profile. Here’s how to do it:
- Double click on Huawei Access Manager to start the program.
- Click on Tools–>Options
- In the Options Window, click on Network Settings
- Click on New
- Give a Name for this connection profile, for example, Photon
- Leave the Default Access Number untouched.
- Enter the Photon phone number as 9xxxxxxxxx@domain as your username. You should get this data from the dealer when you purchase the device. For example here in Kolkata, I got 9xxxxxxxxx@photon.ttsl.in
- Enter the password that you should have got from the dealer. The default is internet which should work in most cases.
- Click on Save and optionally click on set as default.
There you go you are done. Once the profile is saved, all I have to do is plugin the device, double click Huawei Access Manager on my desktop and Click on connect. I got decent speeds on the road here at kolkata and when I was visiting Hyderabad.
Ok, a word about why I chose Prepaid over Postpaid. In postpaid, I have to select a plan before month end for the next month from options of Rs 500, Rs 650 or Rs 750 each giving me .5, 1 and 2 GB data transfer respectively. So if I take a postpaid connection, I absolutely HAVE TO PAY minimum of Rs 500 every month whether I use photon or not. If I don’t pay a bill for a month, TADA! my connection gets cut.
Now compare that with prepaid, where I have options of Rs. 200, Rs. 500, Rs. 700 and Rs. 850 for 250 MB, 650 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB respectively all for a validity of 30 days. But here’s the bumper prize, you have a grace period of 6 months (5 months after initial 30 days) for any prepaid card. So if I recharge by Rs 850 for 2 GB and then don’t recharge for another 5 months, my connection doesn’t get cut. And if I recharge by a minimum of Rs. 200 my balance left keeps getting added over. So for someone like me, who already has a wired internet connection at home and uses Photon for mobile internet on the road, i can get away with a minimum of Rs. 200 every month because I don’t need too much data transfer!
Another advantage of Prepaid over Postpaid is that unlike postpaid, if you over use your data transfer limit, you just won’t be able to connect anymore. I have a colleague who one fine day, received a bill of Rs 5000 on his photon postpaid connection because he had forgotten to check how much he was using and photon just kept on adding to his bill after his balance had run out.
Anyways, these were my thoughts and review of it. I feel the Photon Data card is a great product if you spend too much time roaming from place to place and need to remain connected on good speeds. But in my opinion on the long run, the prepaid connection would prove cheaper and more practical to you. Let me know your thoughts.
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Update: Tata Photon Prepaid has now begun to provide your Usage Details online on their website which was not available earlier. Thanks to Subhankar Paul, I checked out how to do it and wrote about Tata Photon Prepaid Balance and Usage Details.
