I’ve been using Airtel Broadband for the past 5 years in total -started while I was in Gurgaon with my parents in 2003(at the time it was called Touchtel) and here in Bangalore since May 2007. I’ll be talking more about the Bangalore experience here(though my overall experience with the Gurgaon connection till July 2006 was quite good).
The best services according to me, are the ones that just work. You never have to even think about them because they do their job silently and efficiently in the background. And in the rare event of a breakdown, prompt customer service ensures that you’re back on track with minimum hassle.
I subscribed for an unlimited 256kbps connection in May 2007. For the record- I always prefer having unlimited usage connections; apart from the volume of downloading that I do, it’s hassle free since you pay only a fixed amount every month and don’t have to worry about being overcharged or anything.
I called up their customer care number to ask about services and charges, and within 2 days a representative came to my place to install the service and fill up application forms.
Speed - A rated speed of 256kbps translates to 32 KBps(8 bits make a byte) and my downloads always would constantly remain at around 28 to 30KBps. I use a free tool called Netmeter(available at https://metal-machine.de/readerror), which shows a graph indicative of your current speed. For me, it has always displayed a solid bar, indicating constant speed without fluctuations.
In January this year, I upgraded my connection to 512kbps unlimited. Now I get a constant speed of 62.2 as against max of 64KBps. I can comfortably stream online videos or download torrents without a second thought.
Outages and response time:Airtel always schedule their maintenance periods between 3 and 5 am, which are off peak hours. Even in this case, I receive an SMS informing me of the planned outage in advance. So far, only once was there an unplanned outage, which was told to be for 2 hours only.
Billing: I always prefer paying my bills online to save time and hassle. Airtel also has the option to pay online, however they do not support debit cards other than Citibank. So just for this reason I had to go get a credit card; I’m not a fan of credit cards otherwise.
Summary: My experience with Airtel Broadband has been that it’just works’, and if I were to shift my house in Bangalore the first thing I would ensure is that their service is available in the new locality I’m looking for.