The worst thing in Bombay, India is that we still do not have any so called reliable Internet service provider as yet.
From the top most you could somewhat rate BSES or Satyam which is a surprise new entrant.
BSES came with a lot of promise, but is now only working in spurts and bursts and is not at all ready for the street smart operators like In and Win cable who are out to sabotage all their lines like the times when smaller cable TV operators were shoved out by these two bullies.
Poor BSES, doesnt even know what they are up against and are just some dazed ’babus’ sitting in their cosy offices at BSES and trying to make some sense of their predicament. If you ask for their connection, the standard reply is one month (they are crazy) and end up taking almost 3 months to connect and that too they have a lot of maintaining to keep the connection smooth and running.
The Satyam guys have come in with a new kind of a deal. They install a small 1.25 lakh worth laptop size reciever atop your building and connect every one in the building via CAT5 cable through a hub and you are up and surfing in mostly 3 days. What does it cost ? A one time installation of 3500/- and 999/- per month..so far so good. Now, whats the catch ? You need at least 25 subscribers minimum in one building or a cluster of buildings within 100 metres radius of the reciever atop. Good for large societies, but we guys living in smaller buildings just look at the fortunate ones with gaping mouth-shut.
So, there you have it my friends-something straight from the horse’s mouth..and I would love some comments on this from like minded folks out there in cyber land. Maybe I could throw some more light on this topic.