The national internet backbone is afterall, the backbone. BSNL, which runs on that, definitely gets the advantage of speed & capability. I have used Sify, Airtel and Tata Indicom, and will rate BSNL at no. 2. It is definitely no. 1 as far as connection speed goes, but the following points should be considered before experiencing it:
- Non-existent customer support:** The support website doesnt work. The phone lines do not function, and are engaged on weekends. The staff has no clue and cant spell internet literally. For every little problem, you need to run to the local office and deal with silly babus.
- Highly unreliable:** With great speeds comes great sacrifices(of reliability)! It keeps going off whenever it pleases. And comes back on its own. No point calling support.just try resetting everything, or just wait out between 3 hrs to 3 days, and things automatically become ok. I use a reliance data card in the meantime! Longest outage was 15 days, after which I HAD to run around for 15 days to get it sorted(note: all bills paid on time on my part.and no billing issues raised by them either)
3.Weird billing: I do not really think that they cheat you, but their billing structure is so weird that no sane person can understand it in one go. I still don’t. I had a home 1000 plan, and they billed me 13000/- in month two - I checked, and they gave a weird usage sheet which even the local staff could not interpret fully. Their billing sheet again has too many unexplained items with different interpretations by different BSNL staffers. I changed to an "Unlimited" Plan, and things have become better. I recommend the same to everyone for the sake of your own sanity.
4. Extensive web-help forums: As it is impossible to get help from BSNL, luckily a lot of support forums have propped up on the internet. Just search for "BSNL support" and you will find 100’s of people who will explain BSNL’s mysteries in detail!
Considering the above, I definitely recommend BSNL for net-savvy folks - you cant beat the speed. Basic users should stay away, as they will end up getting frustrated a bit too often. Only self-helpers can survive DataOne!