I am an Iqara Subscriber since a year or so...
This was my first Experience with a Broadband Connection, as earlier I used to live on MTNL and Roltanet Dialups.
It was amazing for the first few days. I selected 256kbps/1GB Plan, and I typically used to get speeds up to 240kbps.
But all that changed just a month later.. The connection seemed to be unstable. So much so that I had to call up the people and had the cables and everything inspected. Still I continued, because for me, money means a lot, and Iqara was the best available plan for 650 odd bucks every month. The speeds kept on going low, until a few month later the speed that I would get at the most dropped to about 160-192 kbps.
There was load-shedding issue in Thane for quite some time. And these people were so poor, they did not have money to buy a backup generator. So if the power was cut in that area, the internet connection would be down for all that time. (They got it fixed only recently, I heard).
Then these people launched their Suvidha Plan. And there the Troubles started. I switched to the plan, and immediately, their link in this area went down. It was almost 5-6 hours of downtime.
The next time, it was just a week later, when they had a major server down, and the cable problems too... And guess the reason they gave me... They said that the Cable goes through a Society near the Royal Inn Hotel, and the Secretary of the Society is not reachable, and so they cannot repair it inside the Society Premises. For that reason, the internet connection was down for two full days.
The next time, again just a few days later, they had the same issue... This time, the reason given was a server that was down in Surat due to floods (God knows what happened there), and so we experienced all the backup servers outage... As usual, it took a lot of hours to get corrected.
And now, just today, they had their Server down again, and they took full three hours to get it up.
In the days where the companies pride themselves with 99.999% of uptime and all, this is one company which thinks nothing of it... Altogether, the servers’ downtime was close to three full days in just 23 days, meaning a downtime of almost 13%. Service Level of 87%.
And oh, did I mention about the poor way in which their website was developed as far as the Payment Gateway is concerned?
In their Pre-paid Plans, you cannot carry-forward the remaining MBs in the next month. So you got to renew before they are over. Which means, in simpler words, the remaining MBs were LOST because you were prudent to topup before your plan exhausted.
And what if you waited to finish off your MBs and then pay? Well, after the MBs are up, no websites open, except https://iqara.net. The website can take you to the pages where you can pay the amount using Netbanking/Credit Card etc. But hey, you cannot go to your Bank’s page because they don’t let you open any website except their own... So you are stranded. You either have to call their Callcenter and wait for someone to show up, or walk in their regional office, and purchase the renewal coupon. It is only during past couple of months that this issue seems to be taken care of, with an advance renewal feature.
And their Callcenter is again a different issue altogether. Lot of troubles about the amount of time you have to spend on phone before you get connected to the Technician. Also, the tape that they play while you are on call, plays only once. So if your hold time is more than that, there is just a frosty silence after it is played... And you keep on wondering if you should hang up or just stay on.
Just then a person picks up your call, and after getting your account number, asks how s/he can help you... You take all your frustration out, and the only response they can give is to "assure" you that they will forward the complain to their so-called ’Technical Department’.
But hey, you know what? Their Technical Department is not accessible at all. They don’t have a number, nor do they have an email. You have no way to know if your complaint is really forwarded to them. They guard their Technicians like anything.. Never give you any details. So you are again just left wondering what to do...
Overall, I have a BAD experience, and given a choice (and some extra money), I would rather prefer to get an ISDN Line / Leased Line.. At least those people respect you a little (I have seen it as my company has a leased line from Bharti and VSNL) when you pay tens of thousands of rupees every month... Poor thing I don’t have that much money, and so I am stuck up with Iqara (so-called) "Broadband".