Caltiger originally started to cater to the Calcuttans now Kolkatans was a new concept in India though free ISP’s such as Juno were already flourishing in the U.S.A. It started small but as the concept grew and so did its subscriber base it moved on to conquer other cities in India.
Users willing to part with a certain area on top of their screens were granted internet access without access charges but had to pay the local telephone call charges. The advertisements which were displayed on the top of the screen with frequent rotations took over the area and bore the costs of access. Initially Caltiger promised users internet access through a toll free number but failed to live up to its promise. It also provides email services to the free service subscriber though the mail servers are down frequently reducing the the extent to which the user can depend on the mail service provided. Though this doesn’t affect the users who increasingly use web mail services.
The software though supported by ads doesn’t seem to install any spyware( software which can track a person’s usage and interests) though such types of ad supported software sometimes does have spyware attached unknown to the user.
But who cares, at least the netizen gets the costs reduced for his net access. The improved version of the adbar as it is called slightly slows down downloads during the change of ads, but should not affect the normal browsing. The help desk of Caltiger is manned by courteous and efficient personnel between 9 A.M. and 6 P.M. . Only one site is difficult to access through Caltiger and that is Rediff. Instead of typing in https://rediff.com, one has to type in rediffgtm.speedera.net to access the site but this may be a problem due to the DNS( Domain Name Server) of Rediff. The speeds are good on weekdays but is apt to slow down on weekends, a clear indication if any required of the popularity of the free ISP. A constant connection speed of around 48 kbps can be achieved on lines supporting tone dialing though connection speeds can vary between 42 kbps to 48 kbps on lines supporting only pulse dialing.
The user on days that the Caltiger server is overloaded due to many users may find his computer disconnected while online due to no response from the server for a long time. It may also take atleast two successive tries to get connected with the first try generating an error message such as ’Internal server authentication error’ or ’ERROR_PPP_TIMEOUT’.
Another problem one may face is creating a connection to Caltiger through an EPABX such as what I face now at a friends place. Setting up such a connection seems to fail despite all efforts. As the adbar has inbuilt software to configure the settings for the dial-up connection this may work against those who wish to tune up the settings.
In short it is a good ISP for home users though not recommended for offices and corporates and should give any other ISP a run for its money, though how long it will last and whether its subscriber base will reduce when more free ISPs arrive on the scene remains to be seen.