BSNL EV-DO has been around for a long time.
When I first moved to Bangalore, I was a staunch Airtel Broad subscriber. However, as the years have progressed, Airtel’s gotten more & more greedy. This has lead them to give smaller download quotas on High Speed Broadband & then screw the customer over by giving them no more than 256KbPS until the end of the month. To add to this, Airtel Broadband harasses customers by not changing plans when requested on pro-rated basis, but only at the beginning of the billing cycle!
Even when you ask them to go ahead & change your tariff plan at the start of a new cycle & give them 29 days to do this, they still "forget" to do this. When you ask for a compensation for their lackadaisical service, they say that there is "no provision" in their terms of service to customers to compensate a customer for what’s their mistake! Can you believe that folks, these guys are on a contract where they can take your money, sue you if you don’t pay on time but if something’s wrong on their side, then they aren’t responsible!! NOTE TO AIRTEL PR: Your Appellate Authority has all my email’s with them. Don’t bother asking me to reply to some spam message that you’re going to leave as a comment.
All this lead me opt for BSNL EV-DO as it seemed a fair deal for just a rental of Rs 825 / month ( inclv of taxes). The service is pretty decent with internet speeds going anywhere between 20KB’s - 120KB’s. The freedom for mobility is definitely a value add! The only thing you might want to consider is buying the device from BSNL offices directly as if you buy it through their Udaan website, you might land up paying Rs. 2000 for what actually costs Rs. 1500 from the BSNL Office. This is because BSNL has outsourced its sales pipeline to family members of BSNL employees who’re free to market BSNL services & make money from it. Though these guys aren’t allowed to charge more than the MRP quoted on the BSNL Website for the EV-DO devices, they still do it. So beware!
Hope the good service continues from BSNL & I’ll be a customer for many more years to come.