India Broadband Forum

blomma

Hi,

I am often visiting my family in Kavali (AP), and there is no major DSL or Cable ISP available there.

Does anyone know what kind of options we have there, eg. Satellite or ISDN multiple channel? And what would be the best/cheapest option? (Maybe a combination, ISDN for upstream and Satellite for downloads?)

Does anyone know what are the common solutions that small ISPs all over use, some kind of cheaper Internet has to be available in these little cities :-)

Thanks,
Blomma

Admin

The best option I would say is gprs, Find out if airtel has edge enabled gprs in your area and if they do I dont think there is any better option.Just use an edge enabled phone to connect and you will get 80-90kbps speed on an average day and upto 100kbps on a good day.
I think this speed is alright for browsing and all and ocasional updates of your operating system.

You can try reliance netconnect as well as that is wireless and is most widely used by press reporters across India and they say its the most reliable wireless connection.

Yes satellite connections are a good option but Its too costly by Indian standards as it costs 100 pounds upwards for a 128kbps connection in UK and the initial equipment costs are too high and this is the reason you dont see satellite connections in India.Otherwise there are two companies which provide these connections in India as not all of them have satellites covering India.Its cheaper in the middle east as there is a lot of competetion.
Isdn connection is another possibility but again you wont get anything better then 128kbps and the costs again are high as compared to airtel's gprs or tataindicom plug and surf or reliance netconnect, all of these offer almost same speeds but with much lower costs and you get the added advantage of using them on a laptop while you are away.

If none of these appeal to you then wait for BSNL to roll out thier wimax services some time later this year and you will get speeds in excess of 2mbps with it and the prices at par with adsl and cable connections.

blomma

Thanks for the quick reply.

Do you know anywhere I can read about BSNL Wimax rollout plans? If I know India correct, end of the year means in maybe 2-3 years?

EDGE sounds interesting. I am currently using GPRS on AirTel there, but its too slow without the EDGE option - Reliance seems too expencive compared to the other operators (30Rs/hour compared to 15Rs/day with AirTel).

What about good ISDN dialup/unlimited use plans, are some of those available (and some that allows to use both ISDN channels for 128k connection) ? They want to use Internet there, and if there are affordable "always on" solutions, then I will just sponsor the "extra" it costs for my family there.

Thanks,
Blomma

Admin

Bsnl has not made any formal announcment about wimax rollout but they are currently running trials at 10 locations in India (one of them being panipat in haryana cant remember the others) and they have been a good success so far.
The comercial roll out depends on when bsnl can struck a good deal with a customer premises equipment manufacturar as they are looking for a supplier who can provide it at the cost of a dsl modem which is aprox Rs1200 to 2000 as at present wimax cpe costs more then Rs5000 and the reason is that there is no competetion in the market right now but bsnl being bsnl, They have the customer base which can make a suplier rich overnight and they will surely consider bringing the costs down to earth
Comercial roll out is going to be some time in June or July this year although its not official, I found out from an officers unioun president last week.

ISDN is the thing of the past to be honest and if you have got isdn connection available from the bsnl exchange I am 100% sure that they would have installed adsl equipment as well by now so I suggest you check with your local exchange if they cover your area.ISDN connections are charged by the time you spend online and not data transfer as far as I am aware and its not cheap either.

If its the lack of speed which bothers you then try a dialup connection in conjunction with your gprs connection and use a teaming software.This will enable you to use one connection for downloading stuff and other can still be used for browsing so in this way your browsing will never be affected. You need to have good knowledge of a PC to get one of these teaming softwares working.

rahulverma

Hi, I live in Dehradun and unfortunately there is no reliable internet connection with high speed. Reliance Netconnect is too slow giving me a speed of less than 2kbps while BSNL broadband is also too slow and not reliable. Also, BSNL are not accepting any broadband connection in my area for the next few months as there is work going on to increase the capacity for new connections.

So I am really stuck. I run a Internet business and I need fast internet connection. I am prepared to pay high satellite costs as I have no choice. Can you please tell me the names of the 2 companies that offer satellite connection in India? At the moment, I am really desperate as all my work is being held up. Thank you very much.

Rahul

rahulverma

Anyone? Some help would be much appreciated.

rahulverma

Since, no one was prepared to help me, I have done my own research on this to save other people the trouble. Basically, there is a company called Hughes that offer Satellite Internet through VSAT. It requires a dish that is about 1 meter in length and is installed on your rooftop. It communicates directly with a satellite in space and sends back the signal to your home satellite. The dish costs around Rs.60,000, although this is a one time cost.

I must say that Hughes do not have very good customer service. I have written more at Hughes Satellite Internet.

In short, they have various plans for you to choose from. Basically, for 250K speed and with about 3GB download, you are looking at around Rs.5000/month. This is negotiable as the salesman pointed out to me. I am considering their offer and if you are desperate, then this might be the way to go.

Apparently, Hughes is leader in VSAT Satellite Internet, ahead of Airtel, and others!