Bharath's Tech Blog

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Using mChek with Airtel prepaid and postpaid

Airtel offers mchek service which can be used to pay mobile phone bills for postpaid customers and to make recharges for prepaid customers.
The service can be accessed through interactive voice response system by dialing 543219.
mChek asks for a credit card number and a pin number while signing up.The pin number serves as the authentication code for accessing and using the mChek facility.
Recharges can be done for a mimimum of 50rs, the amount credited will be the usual for prepaid subscribers. The best part is that mChek not only works for the regsitering number,it can also be used to recharge/pay bills for any airtel numbers,be it prepaid mobile or postpaid mobile or landline.

Special note: In case an user is registered with mChek,but not having outgoing facility due to low balance or unpaid postpaid bill, mChek cannot be accessed directly since 543219 cannot be dialled.There is a solution to access mChek even in such situations, goto airtel.in and go into "Easy Pay".In that page,select bill processing through mChek and give the amount and number.mChek will automatically ask for your pin number in your mobile through interactive reply mechanism.Just enter the pin and the bill will be paid.

Labels: airtel, credit card, india, mchek, mobile, online, online payment

Posted by bharath at 2/24/2010 05:24:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Friday, June 19, 2009

Mobile number portability by September 2009

- MNP (Mobile Number Portability) will allow a mobile customer to change his/her service provider for any reason, while keeping the old number intact, all for a small fee.

- IT minister A.Raja had said that MNP will begin in October. (on June 2009)

- Mobile number portability (MNP) is set to roll out in Chennai from September, the focus will now shift from pricing to quality of service.

- In most of the countries where MNP is prevalent, the subscribers are not charged for availing the service.

- TRAI had earlier recommended a charge of Rs.200 for the number changing procedure,since higher prices may make the service unattractive.

- Number portability will be able to keep a check on the quality of service offered by mobile service companies and is also likely to provide a level playing field for all mobile companies, including new entrants.

Related news
- Tamil Nadu has a very high penetration market for mobile companies in the country. Already, Chennai has the highest teledensity at 111% (111 mobile phone connections per 100 persons)

- Tata Docomo, a joint venture between CDMA major Tata Indicom and NTT Docomo of Japan, will launch its GSM services in Tamilnadu by June-end.

- Idea Cellular, an Aditya Birla company with services in 17 of the 28 circles, is all set for a commercial launch in Chennai.

- Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited (SSTL), a joint venture between Sistema of Russia and Shyam Group of India, which rolled out its telecom brand MTS' in Tamil Nadu recently, has clocked 55,000 subscribers within a month.

- Reliance Communications, which rolled out its GSM services in Tamil Nadu in April with a soft launch, will soon start full-fledged services across the state.

- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is considering to introduce portability for the Direct-to-Home (DTH) segment.So, one DTH set can be used with DishTV/SunDTH/Airtel's when DTH portability is implemented.The procedure is in initial stages,may take years to implement. (TRAI was recommending Number portability for mobile phones since 2003!)

Labels: aircel, airtel, bsnl, mobile, reliance, trai

Posted by bharath at 6/19/2009 01:50:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

The SMS scam

SMS (short message service) is available in every mobile phone, and network operators mostly charge for using sms.There are certain free sms plans, but they offer free sms at a monthly "topup" or "booster pack".

About 2.5 trillion messages will have been sent from cellphones in 2008, and 3.3 trillion messages are expected to be sent in 2009, an estimate by Gartner group.

Lets take a look at what are the costs incurred by the network operators(Airtel,Aircel,Bsnl...) for processing sms. (From NYtimes)

A text message initially travels wirelessly from a handset to the closest base-station tower and is then transferred through wired links to the digital pipes of the telephone network, and then, near its destination, converted back into a wireless signal to traverse the final leg, from tower to handset. In the wired portion of its journey, a file of such infinitesimal size is inconsequential. Srinivasan Keshav, a professor of computer science at the
University of Waterloo, in Ontario, said: “Messages are small. Even though a
trillion seems like a lot to carry, it isn’t.”

Perhaps the costs for the wireless portion at either end are high — spectrum is finite, after all, and carriers pay dearly for the rights to use it. But text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel,space reserved for operation of the wireless network.
That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

Cost of sending an SMS is almost nothing, yet the network operators charge upto .50rs or 1re per sms , depending on the plan. Consider it along with the fact that 2.5trillion messages are sent last year, that will make a fortune for the telecom companies.

Further reading,
What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About Texting (NewYork times)
TRAI not to intervene in SMS tariffs (The Hindu, read last paragraph)
Wired Blog

Labels: aircel, airtel, bsnl, sms, telecom

Posted by bharath at 12/30/2008 03:21:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Checking Gmail on airtel mobile

A nice bookmark for checking Gmail on mobile devices (WAP/WML) can be found at this URL.

http://gmobile.sayni.net/index.php?logout=1&timezone=+5&z=

(This link is working for Airtel users with NetOnPhone -NOP- and without MobileOffice).

Labels: airtel, mobile

Posted by bharath at 2/14/2007 11:13:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Configuring Airtel Mobile Office

I activated Mobile office yesterday and the download speeds in mobile is pretty fast with my N73 EDGE supported mobile.

Here are the settings for Mobile office for mobile,
SMS GPRS to 567 for one day unlimited usage of mobile office, or make a 375 rs recharge for one month unlimited usage.

After recieving settings from Airtel, save the settings. In the mobile, go to,

Menu ->Settings ->Connection ->Packet data -> Access point -> set as "airtelgprs.com"

Then, Menu ->Services -> Settings -> Access Point ->Set as Mobile Office

[NOP users should set the homepage as "www.google.com"]

To use Mobile office in system,
> Connect the mobile to the system via Datacable or bluetoooth.
> Open Network connections and create a new connection
> Select Modem as Phone modem from the shown list
> Set the dialing number as *99***1#
> Leave the username and password fields blank.
> Finish the wizard and connect as if connecting via dialup.

N73 connects to Airtel at 486kbps, but the download speeds of Airtel is just like normal dialup.
But, the download speed in the mobile is reasonable.

Labels: airtel, india, internet

Posted by bharath at 11/26/2006 02:29:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Bharath's Tech Blog

Welcome, This is bharath's Technical blog. I have decided to make an archive of my knowledge in this blog , so that they can be accessed anytime. I hope that this blog will be useful. Visitors, please leave your comments.