One of the most confounding problems faced by mankind since times immemorial (with the honourable exception of Mr. Adam) has been that of choice, facilitated to a large extent by the problem of plenty. Look around and one can see hundreds of alternatives for everything around. The problem of picking and choosing is all the more weighty when most of the alternatives are as good as each other with precious little left to differentiate between them.
As with other necessities in life, a PC has become a part and parcel of our domestic lives. Add to that the rapidly increasing reach of the Internet that places an onus on most users to shell out a couple of thousand rupees more to afford a modem and an Internet Connection. At last count, there were more than 50 prominent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) across the length and breadth of India. These days, the Cable connection has become the preferred choice for many users as it obviates the need for a modem and the drudgery of having to connect to dialup telephone lines.
Having “borrowed” a modem from one of my friends recently, I went shopping in search of a dialup Internet package but the wide range of brands and their various schemes all seemed so confusing. Fortunately, I had done some homework and zeroed in on a few basic criteria to aid me in my efforts.
Food for thought
1. Why do you need the Internet connection? - If you’re looking to use it at home, what kind of browsing activities do you indulge in? Is it just for checking mail, chatting and normal browsing or do you also intend to use it for playing online games, watching movies, viewing streaming webcasts on sports/news websites, etc.? If it’s merely for checking mail and general TP (Time pass) like trying to “patao” innocent PYTs in chat rooms and for pasting snaps of your chocolate boyish good self across dating sites, a normal dialup connection is good enough. For other purposes, especially those that involve downloading mp3, mpeg and other large files, a DSL connection is more apt.
2. Usage - On an average, how many hours in a week or month do you realistically think you’ll use the Internet connection? If it’s going to be something like a couple or more hours per day and you don’t mind surfing even late in the night, it’s advisable to take the connection at home because most dialup ISPs don’t charge anything if the connection is used between certain specified hours in the night. If the usage is just for an hour or so on a daily basis, the neighbourhood cyber café is a better option. With a little bit of luck, you might even land up in good company.
TiC’s Commandments
Once you’ve decided on the above two factors and convinced Thyself of the need to opt for a dialup Internet connection, here are some broad commandments to obey:
1. The ISP shalt not fail in it’s business - The prime factor shalt be stability of the business of the ISP. In short, how long has the ISP been into this business and are you reasonably confident that it will not be affected adversely by a shakeout in the industry. We’ve seen ISPs like “Cheecoo” and “Caltiger” in the past who sought to show their “Corporate Social Responsibility” by offering free services but didn’t realize that India is NOT the market to try out these experiments. Needless to say, they bit, ate and are now digesting the dust. The former within 6 months of it’s launch and the latter, around an year later. Fortunately for the “junta”, these two were providing free services and therefore the unsuspecting customers had nothing much to lose. If the same were to happen with a paid service provider, it would amount to another scam reminiscent of the UTI episode and result in sunk costs for the poor users.
2. Thou shalt do a Cost/Benefit Analysis - What kind of benefits are you getting for the money spent? Is the ISP providing just the normal e-mail services or are there other ancillary provisions like Web pages, software (mostly firewalls), etc.? The simplest way to compare is to divide the total cost of the package by the number of hours available for browsing to arrive at the “Per Hour” cost. On a more advanced scale, most ISPs also offer free night surfing (mostly between 10:30PM and 7AM) and free surfing on Sundays. The validity of the package is also of importance though this depends on what kind of package is opted for.
3. Thy connection ought to offer excellent Bandwidth and Download Speeds - Most ISPs (even the tiniest of the lot) should ideally have a minimum of 1 incoming and 1 outgoing “T1” line (a line with bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps). For the bigger fry with a pan-national presence, the more T1 lines they have, the better it is for the customer because there are negligible chances of a breakdown in service or traffic congestion. It also makes eminent sense to check for the number of dialup lines that the ISP has at its disposal. Imagine having only a handful number of lines to cover the entire geographical area of India and the user spending a precious hour just to connect to the Internet. The worst thing that a disgusted customer would do in such a case would be to break his PC, if not his head.
4. Thou shalt read the fine print carefully - It’s always better to visit the websites of the ISPs beforehand and go through their “Terms & Conditions” section. More often than not, there are a lot of hidden “catches” (scientific training methods would be of great help) contained here. While at it, also check out other details like the number of International Gateways, Port charges, if any, the pulse rate (I think its standard at 1 minute for all ISPs across India) and last but not the least, whether roaming access on local call facility is available.
5. Thou shalt do a dummy run on the 24 Hour Customer Service/Helpdesk - Check if the ISP has a good, 24 hour help desk in place to cater to any complaints/enquiries that you may have. Though the standard “Users Manual” comes with the package, the diagrams depicted therein for the installation process and the actual process involved differ drastically in quite a few cases. In the absence of stringent quality control checks in India, few ISPs still continue to use archaic User Manuals dating. In such cases, one has no option but to call the customer service center and cry out for salvation.
6. Thou shalt obtain feedback from thy kith and kin - Before taking the final decision, get some feedback from friends and relatives who have experience in such matters. These opinions are totally unbiased and allow for greater leverage in the final decision making process. There’s no point in feeling shy like a bride because if you don’t enquire, thou art going to end up being the loser
7. Thou shalt contact the in-house tech expert, Mr. Dhaval Hirdhav for any other details in this regard by sending him an M2M mail. In case of a traffic congestion on the site, Thou shalt post them as comments on the next “page”