I have just been using for a day, the Home500 plan of BSNL (as of 9 Feb 2005 in Chennai).
Aside the fact that one had to kick the PSU bureaucracy all the way to get the conx and get them to do just what they promised thru installation, enabling conx etc etc, the network performance was amazing, for the price, given that I am coming from vsnl’s dog-speed dial-up conx.
To give credit to BSNL, it is early days & understandable; conx went down a few times & am sure they will fix it as basics seems to be in place interms of quality infrastructure.
One only hopes that you never have to call their support staff ever at all; as to be expected no one has a clue - you are given more and more telephone numbers to call that keeps ringing & no one picks up. You are passed amongst the old-age PSU Babus called SDE/JE/AE/So and such acronyms for Sr div Engr, Asst Engr, Junior Engr, Sup etc etc & most of them are living in 50 years ago planet and internet associated ways of working and language baffles when you complain of anything as much as what their acronym & PSU babudom language does to the hapless subscriber. They even resort to good old means - ’’Can you please fax your problem saar?’’ Hello??? this is internet age - dont you have an email ID?? Indeed their website for DataOne broadband service does not even have a complaint/feedback form or email address to contact, yet (I still hold hope).
Yet, for the price, it is worth putting up for a while hoping that their support infrastrcture and their website will improve apart from gloating pictures of ’inagurationn’ of this or that, which had had its time and value!
Not that VSNL (despite TATA’s name association) or Sify for that matter (who seem to have some market share) is any better when it comes to service.
Incase of Sify, you will have the pleasure that some one picks the phone immediately or an automatd email response if you contacted on web - just that - for them to tap themselves on the back and claim an award as per some wierd ISO certfication - whatever you complained about goes straight into a dustbin & you never hear from them, on progress or solution.
Guess what? I had called sify, filled their web form etc etc twice over a month just before I registered with BSNL - they are yet to give me a call & clarify my queries; well if this is their ’interest’ (in sales dept) before the deal is secured, I cant hope their service to be any better than BSNL.
As to VSNL - I have been with them for years, out of virtually no-better-alternative. Less said, the better. Goodbye VSNL - you have all the time on earth to address some of my complaints still pending with you.
So of all the evils, it certainly is worth experimenting with cheaper one - BSNL DataONE!!
Whether BSNL will sustain or not, I kinda like the hell of a run they have given to the other operators, for their money!! Sify, Infocomm & even VSNL et all are busy lately atempting to pamper you in press!!!