Hi folks,
MTNL - Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, these four words are scary enough for most of us!!!! Gosh MTNL broadband, are you kidding me?? Dedicated speeds, good customer support (non-existent ehh). MTNL No way!!!
Before I gave it a shot, I too used to think like that . Now I feel pity for all unadventurous souls. Cmon guys give em a break. They deserve credit for their broadband service.
Four months back I subscribed to MTNL TRIB NU plan (Tiband Night Unlimited).
It gives you 500 MB/month download limit + Free unlimited access between 12 AM to 8 AM.
All costs included monthly bill is just under Rs 700. (It includes Broadband Service + Montly Modem Rent + taxes).
Add Rs 1.20/ Mb downloaded over the 500Mb monthly limit.
Infact my bill is never over Rs 700 as I do all the surfing during the day and 500 Mb/month provided usually suffice. All the hardcore downloading is done in the night during the free period.
Its is a 256 kbps connection, giving me constant download speeds of 28-30 KBps. Good enough!! And over bittorrent I get anywhere between 25-30 Kbps. Not Bad at all. No disconnections.
To give you some idea of the speed, a regular mp3 song will download in 2-3 minutes, you can watch videos online, listne to online radio, download huge games and what not.
I know 256 kbps is not that great speed for a broadband and its an entry level speed, but for the average speed thirsty Indian soul, it would suffice.
There are a few drawbacks too:
Its not an instant connection, that you plugin the cable and you are on. It takes at least 30 secs to connect to mtnl servers adter you power on the modem/router.
For awailing Night Unlimited, you have to disconnect and reconnect again after 12 pm and then disconnect again before 8 AM. Disconnecting here does not mean that you disconnect through software or simply shut down your computer.
NOTE: This is important, YOU HAVE TO PHYSICALLY DISCONNECT OR POWER OFF THE MODEM/ROUTER BY UNPLUGGING ITS POWER CABLE!!!!
Sometimes when you connect, it shows a Local Are Connection Error and wont connect until you restart your computer. It is not a fault at MTNL’s side, maybe a problem with the D-Link router they provide.
The customer service is not all that great.
But keeping in mind that chances of a problem occuring at MTNL’s side are really miniscule as compared to aproblem occurring at your side. So anyone with a fair knowledge of computers would never need their customer support.
So summing up the advantages:
Free downloads at night
Constant speed and connection.
Router provided has inbuilt firewall, keeping you away from all, trojans and worms and unknown invaders. By default all the incoming ports are blocked, but they are in your control. I opened the port 6881 for bittorent through my router. No port is bloked by MTNL.
During a single night I download around 700mb of data using bittorrent (Like downloading a complete CD). Only disadvantage is I need to put an alarm everyday for 7:45 AM for disconnecting.
Using this connection is like a dream come true for a netaholic like me. I am eagerly waiting for a plan that is 24Hrs Unlimited and costs anything around Rs 1000-1500. I’ll go for it, definitely.
Before forwarding the port to bittorent my downloads were restricted to 4-8 kbps.
If you need any help with the port forwarding or anything else, feel free to contact me though this forum. I would be glad to help.