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-   -   Ola Prime sedans: More premium, upgraded with 4G Wi-Fi (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/174175-ola-prime-sedans-more-premium-upgraded-4g-wi-fi.html)

Ola Cabs has announced that its sedan cabs in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore have been upgraded to offer a more premium experience. More than 20,000 sedans across the three cities have been upgraded to Ola Prime, as the service has seen a rise in demand since it was introduced in September 2015. All of these cabs will come equipped with free 4G Wi-Fi.

Apart from the 4G Wi-Fi service, Ola says it has invested heavily in driver training and vehicle quality as well. Ola's services currently cover different price points and categories, including Ola Micro, Ola Mini, Ola Prime, Ola Share and Ola Shuttle.

I've been using the Ola shuttle service in Bangalore for office commute. They did advertise wi-fi in the shuttles , but it's restricted to apps like FB , WA , and a few more making it practically useless. So you just can't visit sites like TOI , The Hindu , for example in your browser. I've stopped using their wi-fi service and instead use my mobile data connection.

I believe similar restrictions will apply in their cabs also.

I can't believe this :Shockked:. Complain to TRAI. This is a gross violation of the recent net neutrality policy. They'll get fined really bad for this stunt.

Uber had offered this service earlier-Uber WIFI in a tie up with Airtel. Each cab would have a Airtel 4G Hotspot device and driver would give you the log in details once you are in. This used to be a separate option in the App.

They no longer seem to offer it. Guess it was not very successful.

What OLA seems to be doing is removing the OLA-Sedan option and upgrading existing sedans (may be not all) to OLA-Prime by adding elements of better customer experience (water bottle, WiFi and car-perfume). In the first couple of weeks, OLA-Prime was 14Rs per km whereas OLA-Sedan was 13Rs. Recently they changed OLA-Prime to 13Rs (in Mumbai) to ease the movement of OLA-Sedan customers to OLA-Prime.

Their option bar was looking too cluttered with around 8 options and it possibly makes sense to let OLA-Sedan die.

On a separate note, with the introduction of OLA-Mini (7 Rs per km) and OLA-Prime (13 Rs per km), OLA seems to be going aggressively after UBER's market share who was most likely doing better than OLA till now with Uber-Go (8 Rs per km) and Uber-WiFi (17 Rs per km) options.

Uber still offers Uber-WiFi option in Mumbai. Its priced at par with their UberBlack option.

To use ola, I believe you need to use a mobile app with a decent speed.

What value does this ola add by providing 4G based wifi to a customer base which has 3G already

1. Its "free" :D. Most Indians love anything that is free.
2. 4G is relatively new to India and after experiencing a high speed 4G connection, a few 3G customers would upgrade to 4G for their personal connections, thereby helping OLA's 4G partner.
3. With 4G speeds, one can actually do some meaningful work while travelling in the OLA car. e.g. emails with heavy attachments, reports etc

Good point. Apparently, that is what OLA is up to. Perhaps, they may not be able to run the Prime segment with the bigger SUVs and need more sedans there to optimize cost.

Uber is now available in Chennai at Rs. 6 per KM. I also see that OLA introduced a new segment named "Micro" to compete this with the same rate.

Personally, I prefer an Uber without Wi-Fi over an OLA Prime with Wi-Fi. For me, it is important to get a cab on time without much effort. OLA drivers frequently request customers to cancel the booking due to various reasons, wasting some valuable time. I have never faced that problem with Uber.

Ah .. my mistake!
I meant OLA-Micro has been introduced new at 7Rs per km. OLA-Mini at 11Rs has been around for ages.

But as you mention, if UBER has dropped to 6 Rs per km, the game is still on. :thumbs up

Travelled in Ola prime couple of times as an introductory offer prime amd sedan are being offered at same rate. In fact they are one and same product if driver invests in 4G wifi dongle of Airtel sedan becames prime 2 out of 3 times the internet connection was not there probably the pre-paid balance on Airtel SIM was over.
I talked to cab driver he says if he puts his cab as prime his wait time to get the cab reduces.
In NCR I noticed that most drivers keep 2 phones one with Uber app and another with Ola to maximise the chance of getting passangers.

No they are not violating any rules, regulation and neither will they get fined.
TRAI regulation applies ONLY to Telecom and Internet service providers.

Ola is not a TSP/ISP, but is only sharing its subscription to provider's service with the passenger. It has all the right to restrict whatever it deems suitable.

In this case they are outsourcing it to a 3rd party, the third party can be sued for net neutrality violation. However since Ola is the enabler, they can probably be made party to it if TRAI deems fit. The message is clear and simple - selective blocking or enablement is disallowed even for free services.

It works the same as in our offices, where IT admins block access to certain sites. Its completely upto OLA as to which sites to allow for browsing and which to block.

Just checked yesterday.

The "OLA Sedan" has been completely dropped from the available options in the OLA App. So now if you need a sadan, the only option is the "OLA Prime". I am talking about OLA Mumbai. The situation might be slightly different in other cities.

I haven't used Ola Prime sedans, but since these cab drivers often operate both on Uber and Ola, I've received Ola Prime sedans with the Ola Play infotainment system on Uber.
While I don't see it as much of a value-addition, given that my phone/tab/kindle keep me occupied during the journey, this is certainly one of those nice-to-have things.
I found the choice of content to be quite good and the UI and overall usability to be quite nifty.
However, I was shocked to read that the content made available is pirated (http://www.business-standard.com/art...1600909_1.html) IMO this is content that is specifically licensed and hence this is a case of misunderstanding. Can anyone explain how this works?