Sify is actually a diabolical ploy perpetrated by an evil group of Sadist-Techies.
How else can you explain the following?
It takes a harrowingly long time for their silly Broadband Client (a ridiculous little icon that you need to click in order to activate the service each and every time) to get activated - and more often than not, it does not open the service, but goes into a 4 minute loop of “trouble-shooting”, just to open up a dialogue box that tells you that the service is not working!!!
Even if you have (hallelujah!) managed to log onto the web, you must never take a brief break to visit the loo – for the sadists at Sify have designed the service such that it will log-out even after a brief period of no activity!!
The local franchisees appointed by them (to repair the service when it goes down due to a local connectivity issue) are utterly useless – they will come and look into your PC as if it is really the machine which is at fault… and finally go away promising you that they will look into the issue… and vanish into the ether!
For some incredibly specious reason, Sify does not allow you connect more than one PC or laptop per household – if you desire to connect another machine, you need to go through a laborious process of “binding your machine ID” to their service. If you desire to connect a third machine, the answer is “not allowed to be done”!! How wonderful is that?!
If you are unlucky enough to opt for their 256 KB connection, you are going to be supremely unhappy – because the speeds you will get will not be much different from their 64KB connection!!! On innumerable occasions, I have tested the actual speeds on 2Wire.com and Bandwidthplace.com… and noted that the speed was actually between 38 and 60 KB!
Hence, if you are a masochist, may I suggest the following ways to satisfy yourself, because they are infinitely cheaper and just as painful as having a Sify “Broadband” (my left foot) account:
Keep your fingers in the crack of a really heavy door – and close the door hard
Take a freshly sharpened pencil and jab it repeatedly into your body-parts
Check out if your kitchen mixer works equally well when your hand is inside the jar
My advice is that you opt for an MTNL Triband connection – it is relatively faultless (after the initial agony of contacting their call center and getting it installed) and utterly uncomplicated. But, then again, this advice is not for masochists!!
Girish Rangan