I bought a 3G data card yesterday. I went to the shop with my laptop and made the guy activate it and show me a working internet before paying him a paisa.
I read some people’s review about the promised free data not being available, therefore I asked the guy to show me the free 3G balance too.
He took some 2 hours to install, made some 10 calls to various people about signal not coming etc, 3G not showing up(it was showing EDGE). Finally he made it work. I am not really concerned about what speed it shows on the Airtel dashboad because what speed you get depends on what website you are opening at that time.
I opened some HD youtube videos and played them at the shop itself. I even checked the speed on speedtest.net. I got an average of 3Mbps 4-5 times.
Today I did my official work which involved viewing some webinar videos. I had the same experience as my BSNL wired broadband. I didn’t feel any drastic increase/decrease in speed. It downloads a 4MB music file in about 15 seconds. It does get heated and a couple of times it got disconnected and I had to reconnect it. But it serves my purpose. I don’t think we can expect too much reliablity from any Indian ISP.
It maybe too early to comment. I’ll revisit after a month and post my experience again.