Problems with Telenor Pakistan

This is my third straight post relating to Telenor, Pakistan and may be the last one too...
It has been a few days that I started using my Telenor connection in parallel with my may-be-link one and ive had a mixed reaction so far.

Firstly the good things were

• Rs.4.5/min call charges to all networks (including tax etc) - No hidden charges
  
• You get the Telenor to PTCL and Telenor to Telenor call swiftly
• *444# works for free, unlike Ufone where you have to pay even to know your balance
• SOS (Emergency call) option is supported (If i'm not wrong, PTA has directed all networks to add the feature? - I tried SOS without a SIM card it didnt work, anyone?)
  
• SMS alerts (confirmations) are quick
  

The bad part

• SMS to other networks sometimes fails (never got a succesful sent to other networks so far)
  
• SMS to International countries is Rs.5/sms (as by mobilink)
• SMS to International countries fails (Tried a Provider of UK that works fine from Mobilink - I believe Mobilink has the largest SMS coverage area)
• GPRS is a pain at times... Though when connected, it works hastily without problems but getting the connection itself becomes an issue at times.
• You are deducted a minimum of Rs.0.94 every time u connect to GPRS, which is NOT the case with UfoneGSM (I tried Ufone, and GPRS hardly deducts any thing unless you use it tooo much) - I'd prefer Ufone if you were using Telenor just for GPRS. Btw I lost a plenty of balance on trying to run GPRS when it was down, and got nothing but a deduction in my balance everytime.
  
• The helpline 345 is always busy (Even with 600 call center representative: Source Adil Ansari (Telenor, Hyderabad franchise)... You hardly get through, and when you do get through the music is not at all music! Its pretty much annoying!
• The representatives at Telenor are pretty much confused them selves. One of the rep acknowledged that they were having problems sending SMS messages to Mobilink but the rep at the call-center just would accept it.
  
• The credit transfer feature put into their sim doesnt work... I tried to transfer some amount from my friend's cell to mine, didnt give any error but it didnt work either.
• Base stations are'nt properly installed yet. I have a mobile base station standing outside my home for the last few days. Deploying the single pole skinny base stations in Karachi like city wouldnt be a good idea. I hope they kept the karachi's humidity in mind when they thought of the skinny design.

Ok so, over the weekend (19th-20th March) I took my Telenor to hyderabad. Be reminded that the service in hyderabad was to be launched on 23rd march. There were some no-signal spots on the Karachi-Hyderabad superhighway but the service in Hyderabad seemed to be OK. The bad part was that there was no GPRS in the entire trip. It would be pre-mature to call Telenor a sinner as the service was yet to be officially launched in Hyderabad...

All in all, the service is good but needs a lot of fine tuning...! At this stage i'd recomend Ufone for GPRS but Telenor is definately better for calling at this point in time (Which I hope remains to be the case)

Other posts related to Telenor on this blog

Interesting Facts about Telenor Pakistan
Telenor Pakistan