India Broadband Forum

India Broadband

I owe it to MS to do a product review. I guess I need to do atleast a few before I start writing something else. And keeping in mind my tendency to drag, I have cut short most of the review contents.

I first applied for a BSNL connection after trying the Indicom dial up connection. Besides being slow it was pretty expensive. I then decided to try a DSL connection. When I consulted a few friends, the first guy said Airtel, the second guy stated Indicom. And both according to them provide both USB and LAN connectivity cables.

I contacted Airtel (Touchtel) and they immediately sent an executive in the morning. He stated that I required a phone connection from Airtel otherwise

it was not possible. If I took the phone connection, the minimum rental for the line would be around 150/- plus internet charges amounting to 500 plus taxes..

So the total bill would’ve been a whopping 800 plus every month. I was wondering if it was worth it. Especially as Airtel has a penchant for overcharging. Then I saw this BSNL ad for Data One. The procedure for obtaining a connection looks cumbersome but is well worth it. I had to go to the telephone office, fill up a request and submitted it with my letter.

I selected the option of full year pre payment and paid for the ADSL modem upfront. The monthly cost would be around 500 bucks +service taxes. However since I selected the option to be paid in full, I ended up saving on two months rental and paid 5000 + service taxes at 10 % + probably education cess at 10.2. I purchased the modem outright as it would be much cheaper in the long run. (These are options you need to specify. The charges would be included in the monthly telephone bill)

The next was the wait. With government offices, it’s the most painstaking job. Often just for a signature these pen pushers take days musing over it. I had discreetly made queries as to when it might arrive and they told me within 45 days.. (That’s their cut off)

After around 5 weeks, the guy turns up at my place. He had called earlier and asked me if I had a LAN card. I stated I did. He came over around 3 in the noon and set it up in 10 mins. He gave me the pwd and that was it. I was all set to go!

Well, the first pleasant surprise was that it was an ADSL modem (much better than the DSL modems) I checked the connectivity and noted that I was receiving around 45 kbps. Another advantage of ADSL modem is it’s clarity in high speeds. The packet drop rate is less.

A few points to note - the connection type is a PPOE connection. The difference is that you need not have a sign in logon for a normal DSL connection. You are connected throughout. With PPOE connections you have a sign on box. Of course you can set it to automatically logon, but I prefer to control the internet, otherwise the software requests for auto updates is a headache. But do note that PPOE connections are shared bandwidth. That is if you ask for a 256 KBPS connection, it is shared between 8 connections for BSNL. The speed would be around 32-45 KBPS depending on the number of users and the time of usage. Fair enough. A good way to control costs and still maintain the minimum recommended speed.

In all these 12 months, I only have seen a downtime once for increasing the server clusters. Boy! It was there for around 3 days! (Not much internet trading activity though without a connection) I enquired with their helpdesk, (they don’t address you as sir – I feel it is a good sign of a great product) and they told me point blank that ’’it’s down. Will be down tomorrow also. Our engineers are working on it.’’ What can I say? (The connection I took is already 15 months old.) That’s the best part of going in for a government service. You think they are rude. But in no way are they rude. That’s typical government efficiency. And eventually Is it the helpdesk service that matters to you or the connectivity?

I later realized that the connection I subscribed for was the 256 KBPS with 2 GB download. As I rarely downloaded any, (I have access to most of the softwares I require and a burner at Office) I downgraded the connection to 256 KBPS and 400 MB basic. Well, this was another run around to change the connection. They don’t do it via the helpdesk. I paid the obligatory visit and was told it would be effective from the 7th month onwards. After the change, I noticed that the speed remains the same. Only the download size was restricted.

The excess payment I had made in advance? If it was Airtel, you would have had the experience of your lifetime explaining it to the service guy every time. With BSNL, I didn’t as he had told me it would be effective the next billing cycle. This year’s charges were supposedly, 2500 +service tax for the internet. The monthly phone bill expanded the total bill to around 3345. I was surprised to see a rollback on the total bill. You guess the cost? The total bill I pay for the next one year is 1841 along with the phone bill! That’s true government style like your tax refund cheque!

All in all, it has been a pleasant experience. And there are no bandwidth constraints with BSNL. With private players, they try to cut down on costs, which is not the case with government owned BSNL.

A true gem of a government service!

Take care…