It’s been good last few months for Windows Phone users in India. There were several marquee apps that made way to the Windows Phone Store from Android and iOS. Also, a lot of companion apps for real-world services arrived on Windows Phone.
One of the domains was telecom service providers or carriers. The apps from carriers are meant to facilitate easier billing and payment for customers, the ability to watch your usage history, and to switch on or off specific services.
In general, these apps provide the ability to instantly check your balance and recharge your prepaid account. Postpaid customers can check outstanding amount, pay their bills, and look at payment history.
The apps also provide information about data consumption to give the customers an idea about their usage patterns. Finally, customers can check out new services and offers, and subscribe to or unsubscribe from different services or offer packs.
All these apps use the primary phone number for signing up to use. Incidentally, the three apps are available for Windows Phone 8 devices only.
Airtel
The first one on the block was from Airtel, India’s leading telecom service provider. The my airtel app allows you to manage Airtel mobile, broadband & digital television accounts.
While the app is functional in most respects, it does not give past usage details which is a bummer. It is a good thing though that the app integrates all services from Airtel in one app.
Download the my airtel app from Windows Phone Store.
Reliance Mobile
The next one was Reliance InstaCare, and is clearly the best in the business. It brings the convenience of managing Reliance Mobile prepaid or postpaid account on the go with a beautiful app with rich and intuitive interface.
While the usage information is displayed as neat graphs, there’s also a Live Tile that displays account balance and bill details.
Download the Reliance InstaCare app from Windows Phone Store.
Vodafone
The recent arrival is the My Vodafone app that for some strange reason is only available to Nokia Lumia 1520 customers as of now. Yes, that insanity is true!
UPDATE: Lot of folks here have commented that they are now able to install the app on other Nokia Lumia devices. On my Nokia Lumia 920, the app is still not available. We don't have any idea on the broad availability of the My Vodafone app.
The app though is pretty good, and functional. The data usage chart is though just a list, and not a great experience.
Download the My Vodafone app from Windows Phone Store.
