The broadband wars ! Thats what it is, with each ISP falling over each other to lure the customer, or shall I say, many a ignorant customer. What better way to describe, becuase I learnt that the hard way !
Broadband in simple terms simply means fast internet. With prices coming down, it wont be suprising to find a internet connection in many a Indian home now.
I was an earlier customer of Dataone which you will know in my review on that. Since Airtel broadband is only my second ISP to date, and I hope it stays that way, you will be readng a comparison of the two.
Why I took up dataone ? Firstly, no other ISP operated in my area back then, so I guess I had no other choice. And next I was impressed with the speed they offered. And I thought that the 1GB data transfer limit was colossal ! I thought wrong.
I mean existing dataone users and ’’fans’’ no harm in this review. I am just narrating my experiences. The decision is yours to take.
Their customer support is bad. Once I formatted my system and didnt know the setup. When I called the customer support and stated the problem, they would ask me what OS I have and then ask me to hold on the line while they put a tune in it, which I could do without. The next person would again ask me the same question and he would get the same answer and he too would put me on the line and the cycle would repeat.
Now to the main reasons I changed. I am a heavy user of the internet. On my holidays I am online almost 75% of my time, so chances are that takes up a lot of bandwidth. And to those of you who thought that only downloading software and game demos took up your bandwidth, you are mistaken. I exceeded my bill two times and I had enough.
Furthermore requiring a broadband connection required a landline which I already had, but was dead for the past month with my efforts to ask them to come and correct it go in vain. We were only left with out mobiles to communicate.
Next the rent, bsnl landline customers would be paying the instrument rent, the plan rent and other such charges apart from the call charges. Take your bill and break it down and the math will be evident to you.
Why I needed a new ISP: Like I mentioned before, I needed a good connection with higher data transfer limits, not rates. So speed was not a factor for me, but transfer limits were. I came upon this brochure from airtel broadband and contacted their sales rep. He came the next day and gave me the form. I decided to change my landline as well. So it was a combination of airtel landline and the broadband which I had chosen.
I only had to pay a registration fee of Rs.500 and I got my connection in five days flat. I had waited three months for my dataone connection.
I would be billed as follows. I have a 128kbps unlimited bandwidth connection. Yes, the rated speed is half of what dataone offers, but unlimited bandwidth is what I want. Furthermore there is no phone rental or plan rental or any other parephenalia. My last months bill was Rs.712. That was Rs.600 for the broadband connection and Rs.112 worth of outgoing calls. Outgoing calls are billed at Rs.1.10 per min same as bsnl.And by the way, you dont get any free calls with the airtel line.
You might argue that this is still an expensive gamble as compared to bsnl. In dataone, the plan charges were Rs.500(256kbps) for the broadband and an additional charge of Rs.90, The phone rental was something around Rs. 350 so I had to pay a minimum of Rs. 940 apart from the outgoing call charges. Compare this to the airtel and I only pay a minimum of Rs. 600.
One important thing, since I already bought the modem frm bsnl for the dataone, I didnt need to buy another. That saved me about Rs.2000. If you are planning to take a new broadband connection from either bsnl or airtel you have the choice of either renting it or buying it outright. Both bsnl and airtel offer the same rates.
Well, like I said, I just gave you the details. You chose your ISP. Of course dataone is good for checking your mails once in a fortnight and such. But still, do you think it is cost effective ? 128kbps for an broadband connection, which is not exactly broadband, might seem slow enough. You need a minimum of 256kbps to state that you have broadband. So what if mine is not, I am extremely satisfied with my airtel connection and any way you look at it, it is more cost effective than the other.
Spartan8677