Getting a SIM card in India

1. about 1/2 year back getting SIM was like getting oxygen. It was like Rs5 or even free some times. It started causing lots of issues. Its way for cheap advertising actually you know Indians tend to spend less, specially in business. Following are some of the consequences

   i. Marketing SMS from these free/cheap SIM cards

   ii. Perverts start irritating ladies(yes, this is true)

   iii. Of course lots of marketing calls.

   iv. The worst part is its used for all kinds of illegal activity, when police wanted traces, the SIM card vanishes without any proofs.

   v. The biggest problem TERRORISTS. 

Govt took few good steps like DND(Do Notcall Directory) where a customer registers himself/herself to this service do not get any unwanted calls. If such calls comes then the operator will be heavily penalized.

2. Since they wanted tracking of the the valid users of the SIM, strict rules followed to give govt provided photo id for Indians and passport for non-Indians. And also took strict activation mechanism that a voice call is made from operator to verify the user details given.

3. now the tech part :). You know since India is one of the biggest countries and due to business and competition we have around 17 operators. Even complex part is although Airtel(in your case) in Delhi and Bombay, technically both work as different operators(yes its true). 404-10 Airtel Delhi and 404-92 AIRTEL Mumbai. refer this link http://modmymobile.com/forums/70-slvr-l9-l72/555395-mcc-mnc-... This means if your Delhi user and make call from Bombay the original authentication happens in Delhi itself(in telecom language its called Home Location Register HLR in short). And when you visit Bombay/Mumbai you are in a location called Visitor Location Register in short VLR. Since your card is not yet activated the VLR rejects you,Hope this helps.

P.S: India does not allow location based services as of now. and TRAI(Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) expects your calls SMS etc are stored for 36 months. So if you have done something wrong using mobile phone in India, beware that govt has 3 years to get hold of you :)

HAPPY MOBILING IN INDIA :)

Many people don't have the required ID to get a SIM. So they used to have someone else buy them a prepaid SIM and then use it under that person's ID. In some cases, they'd do something illegal and finding the right person was painful.

There were many cases in the early days where people would use fake ID and buy postpaid phones. They'd use it as long as the operator would let them, without paying the bill. Rinse repeat the fake id. There were a bunch of folks who did this when we were at university - IIRC, they went through a half dozen handsets in 3 months and ran up large bills. There was an black market of sorts for such mobiles - buy it for Rs.500 (reliance), resell it for Rs.1000 and use it for Rs.10000+. People used to call in to one of these phones. the owner of the phone would then conference them on long-distance (expensive then) calls and international calls ;-)

Finally the terrorism thing, where the government said that wanted to avoid giving them an easy way to communicate. they also banned the hiding of one's number in the caller id because people were making too many crank calls and creating trouble.

At the end of it all, the rules mandate official ID proof. Activation needs a background verification to be done. While this does not work in reality, the number of postpaid dine-and-dash type situations have been reduced.

Yes, 50bt will get you the naked SIM, but if you want to make calls, or connect to the Internet you need to charge it.

The 1000bt quoted includes 30 days of Internet access with a 1 - 2 GB traffic included and 200-300bt of additional phone credit for calls and sms.

From that perspective 1000bt don't look too bad anymore.