Jalaj P. Jha

Hi.
You seem to have reached this page with great expectations but sorry to disappoint you that the BPL Mobile I adored when I originally wrote this post, no longer cares for its customers . They no longer serve properly when it comes to GPRS, and when you reach the customer care, they do nothing except for asking your date of birth and billing address each time you complain and end up with “it might be due to network congestion, please try again after an hour or two.”

Though officially you get an unlimited usage for Rs.561/- (499 + service tax), the regular outage and slow connections will end up with less than 500MB per month of usage.

I being dissatisfied with BPL (you can read more about it when you read ahead) was looking for alternate wireless solutions and my search ended with Vodafone’s USB Stick Rs.5999/- offer where you pay Rs.5999/- as advance rental for 12 months and get USB instrument free and 1GB of surfing each month for next 12 months. Though there is a limit of 1GB but at least it is higher than what one gets with an unlimited but slow and irregular BPL connection. Another alternative can be Idea Netsetter a similar USB device having initial cost of Rs.2490/- and recurring cost of Rs399/- (plus taxes) per month giving 1GB free each month (or Rs.299/- for 512MB limit). All usage above limit are charged at Rs.2/- per MB, the lowest I have seen with any of the operator.

I don’t have any info on how proper is MTNL’s service for its unlimited (for Rs.399) offer. Anybody having a feedback on it, please post it here for others to gain from it.

Considering that this page gets a daily 150 and above pageviews, I find it a better to inform my readers of the problems with BPL Mobile’s services (gone bad since May 2008 and existed till I opted out of its conection).

 

 

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Below is what I had posted on earlier dates.

 

 

 

 

 

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BPL is unable to properly serve the GPRS users due to network congestion, particularly in Goregaon area. I am facing regular GPRS outage, even at late nights, since 28th May 2008. The customer care says problem can be solved only by Server upgrade which they cannot pinpoint when would happen, and till then they are sorry and don’t want me to call the helpdesk every now and then. On a previous occasion they went as far as suggesting me to unsubscribe.

 

 

 

This page has been viewed 2268 times as of now (01-June-2008 12:08am) and might have inspired many of the visitors to get BPL GPRS for themself too. Now I don’t think I should recommend it.

Update 17.06.2008: After more than three weeks of frequent outage and hopeless service, and after I mailed to customer care keeping Nodal Officer in cc, they seemed to show interest in solving the problem, but seeing no sign of improvement and their mail asking for 3 more days, I mailed my plan for opting out of the GPRS facility at the end of this billing cycle i.e. 19th. Outcome? I received a call asking for verifying my Handset settings. So my question is “what was all that stuff regarding upgradation and so…”

BPL used to advert “95% satisfied customers… we are working on the rest…”. From all the experience it seems to me that they achieved high satisfaction percentage not because they improved the satisfaction level of the “rest” but because the “rest” finally decided to opt out of their services thus in turn decreasing number of “dissatisfied” customers.

Waiting for next three days to see if their services get going back!

Update 20.06.2008 : After knowing that my voice will not be heard, I have decided to unsubscribe from BPL Mobile GPRS plan. Yesterday I called up the customer care and got myself out of the plan.

Update 18.07.2008 : Ever since I got myself unsubscribed, the BPL guys woke up giving me a call every other day. A few days back a Technical guy from their Network team visited my house and assured me that all problems would be sorted out. A day or two later I got a mail saying that a new tower is being installed in my area (though the surrounding area already have four of them).

What do you think? Should I subscribe again?

 

 

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Below is what the original post used to be.

 

 

 

 

 

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For those who are interested in using GPRS facility provided by BPL Mobile (Mumbai only) here are the brief n settings required for it. You can also use this for surfing Internet through you PC provided your PC is connected to your mobile using Data Cable or preferably BlueTooth.

Go to the main menu and open “Settings”
Select “Configuration” and then “Personal Configuration Settings”. Create a new configuration settings by selecting “Add New” from “Options”

 

 

 

The account fields should be filled as below:

Account Settings

Account Name : bplweb
HomePage : http://wap.mizone.bplmobile.com
User Name : Your mobile number
Password : bplmmsc
Use Preferred access point : No
Access point settings : As given below

Access point settings

Proxy : Enabled
Proxy Address : 10.0.0.10
Proxy port : 9401
Data bearer : Packet data
Bearer settings : As given below

Bearer settings

Packet data access point : mizone
network type : IPv4
Authentication type : Normal
User Name : Your mobile number
Password : bplmmsc

Now once you have done that get back to “Personal Configuration Settings” select the new account “Bplweb” that you have just created and go to “Options” and click on “Activate”

Go back to the main menu and open “Settings”
Select “Connectivity” and then “Packet Data”

Set the “Packet data connection” to “When needed” and then click on “Packet Data Settings” then “Edit active access point” and then set “Packet Data Access Point” to bplgprs.com

These instructions are according to the Nokia sets 3110c, 6085 and should not differ much for other sets and brands and in case of which you can always go to the customer care as did.