To begin with folks, let me tell you that I live in an internet-less island in Pune. I tried getting You broadband here, it worked well for 3 months and then local politics lead to the infrastructure( RF antenna) being pulled down from a neighboring bldg. The local ISPs( goons) do not know what SERVICE means after providing a connection. So, I was stuck with a 3G Wi-Fi Stick which did not provide anything more than 10 - 11 GB a month for around 1250 - 1500 bucks a month. Before this, I have tried local ISPs, Tikona which have flopped. BSNL is not available here.
That’s when Airtel 4G began to be advertised near my place and after running a feasibility demo at home where I did 20 - 30 speed tests with the device at various locations, I found that the Wi-Fi device worked fine near my Windows but did not pick any 4G signal in the interiors of the house. Placed near the windows, it did give 5 - 15 mbps depending on peer usage I guess.
They also have a 30 GB plan for Rs.1995(+14.5% Service tax) and 50 GB plan for Rs.2995(+14.5% Service tax) which is expensive compared to wired line at the moment. Both have a bill shield of Rs.500/- where 2.36 GB of data will be futher available at a prorated cost. You want anything more and you would need to add packs of data called "Data bytes" for additional money.
Not really spoilt for any choice, I went for it during Mid-Dec’15 and bought the Wi-Fi device for 2.5K. Given that the hotspot costs 2.3K, this wasn’t a bad choice since this Huawai WiFi device is more powerful than the hotspot and I wanted home wi-fi connectivity. Now, I was back in Business. My Laptop, 2 mobiles, tablet, reader and Chromecast all started working seamlessly again. The service has mostly been mostly reliable so far.
Advantages:
Good quality Wi-Fi router which can also facilitate wired line broadband connections if you have them in the future besides 4G.
Higher data plans on 4G( 15, 30 and 50 GB Plans)
Service reliability until now at least( fingers crossed) .
Ability to check approximate data usage online.
Disadvantages:
Wi-Fi router has limited Wi-Fi coverage. 200-250 meters or so but serves my purpose within most of the house. For example, when my router is working in the hall, I will get limited connectivity in the bedrooms - probably half the wifi signal probably. The built in antenna is semi powerful.
There is provisioning for 2 external antennas within the device but the attachments are not provided with the device. You need to pay extra to procure these antennas to have super strong Wi-Fi coverage. There are options to activate 1 external-1 internal antenna, 2 external antennas or keep them default at both internal in the settings.
Once or twice, I have had 4G signal but no internet passing through and have had to re-boot the device after which it began working.
Device is attuned to work on 4G only. I doubt whether it will switch to 3G or 2G if 4G is not available any place since there is no option in the admin setting to select available 2G or 3G signals.
Overall, I am hoping that with the entry of other players in the 4G market this year( Reliance Jio, Idea, Vodafone), Airtel will come up with better value and more competitive pricing to make 4G more affordable for users.
6/1/2016: Today, I connected my Airtel 4G router for the entire day and worked from home. Full 4g signal near my room window. No disconnections today on my office laptop during the 8 - 9 hrs. Conf calls via lync( VoIP) were amazing and I could also update all my software, basically work well remotely. Good stuff since the speed consistently stayed between 8 - 12 Mbps+.
20/1/16 update: This has been a highly reliable service so far when compared to wired line. I am just waiting for a situation when main power in the area goes off, want to check whether it continues working using my power backup. Of course I mean the data connectivity and not the device.:-P:)