Firstly,
I was tired of reading these reviews of Hathway.. Very rarely I found them matching mine..
I Live In Vijayanagar, Bangalore..
This is wat my experience with Hathway has been..
Day 1: I call up Hathway for internet connection..
Day 2: A sales agent from Hathway turns up n gives all details, good enough.. But says its gonna take 3-4 days for connection to be in place coz the infrastructure is not present in ur area..
Day 11 (Yes, its eleven): Internet connection still not here..
Day 13: Internet is Up and running.. But after all its worth the wait.. hathway is Fast!!!!!!
I got a 256 kbps connection with Unlimited usage and Bandwidth.. Just 995 a month.. Plus modem rent 100/- per month (you can buy it for 3k, router is for 25k).. plus Installation (one time) charges 1000/-, plus security deposit for modem of 1000/- (Only if modem rented).. Plus taxes(10.2% then).. (I paid 3298 incl first month rent)
This Plan was supposed to be 128kbps but recently upgraded..
There is NO equivalent plan in the market..
The Speeds average above 225-230 KBits per second out of the rated 256kbps.. 2. Downloads touch 30 KBytes per second.. (Getting 34-35 max off lately from some good servers) Good Eh?
I download a Whooping 10 GB in 15 days after I get the connection..
Its always connected so no issues of login or anything..
Its perfectly worth the price you Pay.. There are downtimes.. but its generally 2-3 mins once in 3-4 days that you would probably notice..
Also the call centre ppl are hopeless... They just listen and forward the complaints.. They dont help you at all.. But the technical guys call up after 5 10 mins and are very good at helping you with settings, problems, etc.. Engineers who visit for installation are also good..
If you Dont trust me on all this, you can trust your own eyes.. I have a ’’Print Screened’’ picture (taken out of the blue with no prep..) which shows the speeds I get.. here>> https://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/pawanrh/album?.dir=/e37d
These are the stats shown By AnalogX’s Netstat Live..
If someone has better experiences pls tell me...
Now the short comings...
- This wont apply to normal home users.. though hathway gives you a static IP address, its not public and direct connections to your computer is not possible.. (Since they Use ’6’ Firewalls (as told by a hathway engineer), thats what they say, though its a very good security feature for home Users)which means you wont be able to have a server of your own operating online from this connection..
This also means you cannot host an online multiplayer game.. though you can connect to one..
the Upload Speeds are not great! Its 64 kbps up (Though not mentioned anywhere, by experience).. Uploading is hence like goin back to dial-up. :-(
And sometimes there are minor connection problems like once in 15 20 days.. which can generally be cleared simply by resetting the modem or calling the help-line.. I recommend hathway, hoping its this way everywhere..
Also the usage details are not very clear but who cares when you are on a unlimited plan.. Thats what I recommend.. Also theres no smtp or popmail access for their mail address.. but even thats not a problem I guess because of the many free email service providers.. Like gmail.com
Update: 12th November, 2005
Still working with Hathway in the same great condition! Though my Modem got damaged in between, it was replaced at no cost, but they took a little time (3 days, Yeah I know, bad enough). But otherwise, Speeds remain Stable generally and uptime is generally good. Goes down once or twice a month for few hrs but thats fine for a home user (and heavy downloader also)!
For any clarifications or in doubt you can contact me..
thank you for reading patiently..
Pawan
Pros : Good Speed, No connection problems, Inexpensive
Cons: No direct connections to ip address possible, poor upload Speed