A post-paid user from Delhi got the shock of his life when he received a cellphone bill of Rs 162,411, almost all of it for using 3G services. This unknown gentleman had a 2 GB 3G data plan but ended up using 10 GB of data for which the carrier charged him in excess of Rs 15,000 per GB! Surprisingly, the carrier seems to have not bother to inform the customer that he had exceeded his usage limit or his credit limit, which is itself is very shocking. Unfortunately, we do not know the identity of the carrier. Read on to find a solution to such bill shocks…For the past week or so, I have been checking out www.3Gsimplified.com, a startup that lets users identify the best plans and carriers according to their usage. I tried out a few permutations and combinations and found that the service can at most times provide decent options. This gentleman, for instance, was able to shift to a different plan that lets him use up to 10 GB of 3G data for Rs 2,750 a month. However, the real test for the service would be their ability to update their tariffs on a daily basis as carriers keep adding new plans arbitrarily and keep tweaking their tariffs on a whim. I am told by one of the co-founders, Jigar Doshi, that they are currently updating it once a week but are already trying to make it a daily affair.
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