The cell phone industry in India has transitioned from offering mere voice connectivity to providing value added services such as MMS, and internet connectivity with phone types ranging from normal cell phones to the ones having PDA features. Faced with such a wide range of options, customers are finding it increasingly difficult to choose the right service provider. Once the customer opts for a cell phone service, the cell phone number becomes his identity. This is the reason why changing the service provider at a later point of time becomes impractical. Therefore, it is imperative for the prospective customer to evaluate service providers before he selects any of them. The aim of this article is to help customers rate cell phone operators on a set of general criteria, which will help in the selection process.

Let us look at the cell phone giants, most of whom operate nationwide -- Airtel, BSNL’s CellOne, Hutch, Idea, Reliance and Tata Indicom.

We shall consider the following criteria to evaluate the various service providers :

Network coverage
Quality of service
Customer service/satisfaction
Calling plans
Schemes and offers
Recoverability
Value added services

Some of these operators offer CDMA based services, while most others offer GSM based services.