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CMAI’s National Telecom Awards is one of the highly reputed annual award in the Indian telecom industry.When we say the word ‘telecom’ or ‘communication’, it’s not restricted to services such as voice calls,SMS or broadband but also includes ICT technologies such as e-governance,cyber security,information dissemination and much more.For the last six years, it has acknowledged several top-notch contributors who helped build the pan-India communication network.The award encourages the service providers to provide state of the art technologies for the betterment of the country.

CMAI is a National Apex Association of India with over 48,500 members and 54 International MoU partners.Its sixth National Telecom Awards is held on 8th May, 2012 at Siri Fort, New Delhi.The awards are distributed across 34 categories which also includes Emerging green telecom services company,Largest telecom allied equipments distributor,Best online information dissemination company and Global cyber security ambassador.This magnanimous event is expected to be attended by over 2500 delegates and is being lauded as the mother of all telecom events in India organized till date. The event is supported by Apex Telecom,Internet and Operators Association in India, ITU, DIT and MSME, DOT.

Who will attend the event :

Telecom Operators, Enterprise Solution Providers, Equipment Manufacturers, Exporters, Technology Providers, and Systems Integrators from the ICT arena.

Dignitaries at the event:

CMAI NTA 2012 Awards is presented by luminaries such as Hon’ble Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications and IT; Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary General, ITU Geneva; Shri Virbhadra Singh, Hon’ble Union Minister for MSME; Mr. Sachin Pilot, Hon’ble Minister of State for Communications & IT; Mr. Milind Deora, Hon’ble Minister of State for Communications & IT and Dr. JS Sarma, IAS, Chairman, TRAI.

Technologies that are considered for the award are those that lead to commercially successful products, processes and services that give India a sustainable competitive advantage.Selection procedure goes through the rigorous evaluation of several Indian technology companies through a careful analysis of a variety of parameters including technology innovation, commercial success, execution of strategy and dedication to research and development.The award jury committee consists of twenty one members team led by Former Secretary and Chairman Telecom Commission and include former and serving officials from Ministry of Law and Justice, Commerce, Communications & IT.

List of Award Winners in 2012

Stay connected to our Facebook andTwitter and Blog for updates on Planhound. The link to Google play is below.

We felt a mild tremor inside the office building in Chennai and were asked to evacuate immediately. Yes, I did feel the tremor for less than a second. What happened next is very normal and obvious. When I was taking the flight of steps to get down, instead of calling my friends and family on the cell phone I was tweeting about the incident. And then in a moment’s time the twitter was full of similar tweets from various parts of the country making #earthquake, Indian Ocean, Magnitude 8.9 and Sumatra the trending topics in India. Mobile calls were not going through or even if they went through, the signal was so weak that the voice was breaking. I remember observing this similar phenomenon back in July 2011 when Mumbai was rocked with three consecutive bomb blasts. In any case my primary mode of communication to reach family became internet based like Twitter and Whatsapp. Does that mean in a contingency, data is better and safer mode of communication than voice?

There are technical reasons why this might be true. Voice is synchronous which means that both parties should have no congestion in their networks order to communicate. There is also a problem of interconnectivity between the networks of both parties which may not be enough to take the load of an emergency. On the other hand data services are completely asynchronous. You just connect to the internet through your base station and you post your item. The receiving party also connects to the internet whenever the congestion is less and receives the message. This should also be true of SMS’s but again it looks like the internet capacity is greater than networks sms handling capacity.

Crux of the story: if faced with an unforeseen crisis like tsunami, earthquake, bomb blasts etc. use data services like Edge, GPRS, 3G/ 4G to communicate. You may be surprised that these services work when plain old (supposedly reliable) voice does not !

Choosing a 3G or a HSIA postpaid plan for your datacard may be simple, but are those plans shock-proof? Every operator provides a wide range of plans for different download cap limits to suit your need. If you don’t make the right choices you may end up paying exorbitant mobile bills for data usage at a steeply lower speed. Unlimited plans and Bill Shock proof plans are two alternatives to avoid spending a lot on 3G postpaid connectivity.

Unlimited plans promise subscribers unlimited data usage for specific tariff rates, but it comes with limitations. For example, Tata Photon Plus has many “unlimited” plans with caps. For example “Photon Plus 1GB Unlimited Pack 700 “ has a cap of only 1GB. This means that after 1GB of usage your data speed will be throttled to 155kbps. Whatever you use, your bill will never exceed Rs. 700 which is the cost of the plan. The operator puts a check on the download speed based on Fair Usage Policy (FUP). This ensures that you benefit from data usage and download throughout the month even when you exceed your data limit, only at lesser speed.

Bill Shock Shield plans are offered by very few operators in India. Reliance’s My Best Plan for postpaid Netconnect+ customers comes with Bill shock shield features wherein you only have to pay for the data you use. The plan tracks your usage pattern and charges the lowest bill amount for the data that you use. The fixed rental is as low as Rs. 350 with 500 MB usage bundled.You can pay as less as 6p/MB for overage data usage (on usage above 1000 MB). Finally,the maximum shield amount is at Rs. 950+ tax to shield you from any unprecedented bill shocks when you receive your bills. Airtel‘s 3G Flexishield Pack 675 offers 3.125GB data for a month. If you exceed the specified limit, then the overage data is charged at 2p/100KB upto a maximum shield amount of Rs.2000 at a lower download speed. Once your usage hits the maximum shield amount, you still have unlimited browsing at 20Kbps. So you cannot pay more than Rs. 2000 a month.

Both the plans are similiar in that they guarantee that your bill is capped. However which one is better? Bill Shield plans are usually better if you use less data or if your data usage is not consistent. For example if you get a 1GB “Unlimited” plan and use 100MB, Then you will still pay the full amount – ie Rs. 700 in the case of the plan above. However in the Reliance My Best Plan offer, you will only pay Rs. 350 . Either way on our datacard search, you will see how much the plan will cost you per month. Thus saving you from any confusion. Now that you know the difference between these two type of plans, find the right plan for your usage through Komparify.com

Komparify is based out of Tamil Nadu where the Tamilnadu Electricity Board(TNEB) is challenged with a power shortage of about 3000-4000 MW. This has led to heavy load shedding measures from the government taking a toll on business productivity to a large extent. We, at Komparify.com are no exception, having to face the brunt of irregular and grueling hours of power shutdown. We sought to ways such as UPS back-up for our work place and in the worst case, went on a break for an hour, too. But that didn’t help in the long run. Many companies such as ours are facing the same issues thus leading to a loss of productivity. One option is to smile through the pain

image via kaipullaispeaks

The power deficit scenario is here to stay, at least for a few months now until feasible power projects commence production. Thus we decided to do something about our power driven productivity problems. First most of our servers, even for internal tools are based in the cloud, This means that all we need to get work done is an internet connection and a working computer. Next we went laptop only at our company, The cost difference between laptops and desktops at this point is going down and laptops come with batteries which let you get over the power problems. But the problem of internet connectivity remains. At this point, the most practical alternative would be to use a wireless 3G Wi-fi router.

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Planhound, our Android mobile application has been updated with added features, refreshed UI and improved plan database. We are very excited about this release. Read on to find out whats new.

What’s new in Planhound?

1) Topup Search :

The biggest new feature is the ability to search only for topups. Think you want a voice call ratecutter or just an SMS pack. Hit Find topup and search for the topups in the category you want. You can also select multiple categories. Want 2G data topups for your current usage or find out how much you would pay for 3G. That also is possible. We already measure your usage and can thus tell you accurately how much the different topups will cost you.

2) Improved UI :

Planhound has been given a fresh coat of paint. But it remains as simple and easy to use as ever. We will continue to improve the UI, so stay tuned.

3) 2G / 3G Data Selection.

Want to see how much 3G data costs for your usage ? Or think you are paying too much for 3G and want to go back to 2G. You can choose 2G or 3G both in the preferences menu and when you are searching for topups. We will then show you results (both for plan search and topup search) with 2G data topups OR 3G data topups.

4) Improved Plan Results

Our data has been constantly changing and getting better and better. So now we have a bigger, fresher database of plans to show you. The plans are on the server and keep getting updated so you can find out what the best offers for you are.

5) No menu buttons

Keeping with the Android UI trend, we moved our settings menu to the action bar. So no more menu button.

6) Plans only for your operator

When we asked people who used our app, we realised that lots of people dont want to switch operators. Mostly they just want to switch to a better plan for the same operator. So the default view we show you is only options from your current operator. To search for all operators, toggle the button in the settings screen.

7) Faster Result Loads

We show results much faster by only loading a few options. When you need to see more plans we will load more results.

We think this is a major update and really makes the app very useful. Make the most of it and save on your mobile spend. Stay connected to our Facebook and Twitter and Blog for updates on Planhound. The link to Google play is below.

Indian telcos would soon be vying to bid for the fourth-generation (4G) wireless technology. The government has decided to free up the 700MHz airwave for 4G telecom services as it will generate higher revenue than 3G or 2G spectrum. What’s in 4G? It has a higher data rate and broader bandwidth capability compared to its predecessors. It supports data-rich downloads, high definition video-on-demand and internet-based applications at high speed to mobile devices. 4G will be 10 times faster than current 3G network speeds, at speed of 100 Mbps for mobile applications and 1 Gigabit per second for fixed networks.

A 4G network potentially opens new vistas for telecom enterprises.

• A comprehensive and secure Internet Protocol (IP) solution
• High-quality streaming video and “anytime, anywhere” voice and data at a much higher speed
• Broadband accessibility in rural areas that previously lacked high-speed internet
• Seamless connectivity for global roaming across multiple networks
• Video blogging on mobile phones with advanced HD cameras

and much more to be explored…

Initially, the information and broadcasting ministry held control over the bandwidth but it was not optimally used as reported by TRAI. Meanwhile, the telecom ministry had long sought to use the bandwidth for mobile TV services. Finally, following an agreement between the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the 700MHz band spectrum is to be made available for fourth generation (4G) mobile broadband services in India. The first round of broadband wireless access (BWA) auctions for broadband wireless (4G) networks took place in June 2010 and fetched Rs.38,000 crore for the Indian Government. The next rounds of auction are scheduled by the end of this year, Sibal told attendees of the Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona at the end of February.

Bharti Airtel has plans to launch TD LTE services this year; in the Indian telecom market. It has appointed Nokia Siemens Networks to manage its TD-LTE network in Maharashtra. Likewise Reliance Industries, through Infotel Broadband, is the only company yet to take a pan-India license.

What’s next? It is for us to wait and watch, as to how mobile operators roll out 4G services and succeed at launching countrywide connectivity. Stay connected to our Facebook and Twitter and Blog for updates.

Now that we are already two months into 2012, we thought of finding the best postpaid and the prepaid plans, with special emphasis on 3G plans. We at komparify.com understand that how  overwhelming and exhausting it could be, when faced with so many choices and no doubt there are too many mobile plan combinations to select from, based on the individual’s usage requirements.  In our effort to simplify, we have taken the average minutes of usage (MOU) (blended postpaid + prepaid) and SMS per subscriber per month. The source of average usage per month data is TRAI’s Performance Indicator report which was published on Jan 9, 2012 for the QE Sep 2011. We have kept 750MB for data usage, which after doing some study with high customers who have subscribed to 3G mobile plans, is considered to be close to heavy usage. These heavy data users use their 3G data plan regularly for video chatting, emailing, tethering, browsing etc. However, there is still no information available on how much data in a month is used by average user versus heavy user.

Chennai falls under Circle A and hence the usage pattern there is different from rest of the metros as recorded by TRAI:

Average blended (postpaid +prepaid) usage per month per subscriber in Chennai:

Outgoing MOU- 163

Outgoing SMS- 69

Data usage- 750MB

Average blended (postpaid +prepaid) usage per month per subscriber in Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai:

Outgoing MOU- 194

Outgoing SMS- 57

Data usage- 750MB

Chart for Best-Cheapest Prepaid Plans with 3G plan and Topups:

Chart for Best-Cheapest Postpaid Plans with 3G plan and Topups:

All the combinations that you see in the charts above are based on the fresh data as we keep updating our database as and when something new is introduced by the telecom operator.

Stay connected and keep saving!

3gsimplified is now Komparify!

Komparify has now donned a new look and launched new features to best serve you. Now you can search the right plan for your mobile, datacard and tablet as well. It covers all operators across the country with not only 3G but also 2G plans. And that’s why 3Gsimplified is now Komparify !.

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