I'm going to India for a month. I'll be traveling throughout the country so I need a prepaid service that covers most of India. It also needs to be able to handle international smses (AirCel doesn't) and it would be a big plus if there was a GPRS support. I have a GSM phone - so Reliance is not an option. I've been looking at AirTel and perhaps BSNL, but would like your opinion. Maybe there's a third provider which I should also consider. I'll be very grateful for your help in choosing the right mobile provider for me.

I know there've been a few posts about indian prepaid cards, but people mostly went to one place and stayed there. I'm traveling all around India.

Well if I were you, I'd look at Hutch or Airtel. They are both nationwide however you'll be using 'national roaming' whenever your outside the calling circle you bought it in. National roaming is added automatically to all prepaid accounts and you pay a nominal charge on incoming calls (it's not much).

For GPRS, I'd probably go for Airtel over Hutch.

I think BSNL could be the best option, but I've never been to India so I really cannot suggest much more... Maybe also Hop Mobile if you want an international card.

ok, there is something new I've just discovered. I've looked at recharge vouchers. I didn't pay much attention to them before. It's not exactly what I'm used to. I thought you buy for example a voucher for 100Rs and I'll be able to talk/send sms for 100RS, but that's obviously not the case. For 100Rs I get about a half worth of credits, depends on an operator. Am I understanding this correctly?

So far I'm leaning towards BSNL, but don't know yet. Probably there's still a lot I haven't considered yet. God, did they make it complicated!

Yes, it seems that refills are very complicated in India, with many taxes, and surcharges depending also on the validity of the airtime.

It is wierd, this is how it worked with Hutch...

I paid 100 rupees for the sim card.

I then bought a top up voucher for 550 rupees. I got 389 rupees of talk time and 30 days validity on the account.

Every top up thereafter cost 551 rupees and for that I got 500 rupees of talktime but no extension to the card validity.

Also when you buy a sim card in India, you have to give the store owner a passport photo of you and a copy of your passport (this is a government regulation). Unless you know anyone local who'll register your sim in their name. If you don't provice this information, the outgoing calls and sms are cut off.

Also when you top up, their is usually no card/voucher. You pay the 551 rupees to the store owner and give him your phone number. He then does it from his own cellphone and you recieve a message saying the top up was sucessful.

I'm back at Airtel :)
reasons:
1) Best GPRS service! All I have to pay is something between 150 nad 600Rs (depends on the circle the SIM is from) and the use is unlimited with no extra charge for roaming outside the circle. Even 600Rs is cheap in my opinion if I can talk to my family through MSN Java app and send smses via GPRS :) Perhaps even send an email.

2) you can recharge your account via ATM machines and/or sending an sms and don't need to call to home circle to do it for you. Airtel is very proud of this "hasle-free" procedure :lol:

Of course, there is still room for reconsideration, but cheap unlimited GPRS will most likely win the deal.