Contrary to most of the reviews I have gone through about Reliance wimax in bangalore, it is working fine for me. I live in Bellandur (outskirts of bangalore) where no major ISP was ready to provide broadband connection. I tried with almost every provider except BSNL (as they said first I need to take a phone connection and then apply for broad band, a total lead time of minumum 30-45 days) and everybody else replied "Not Feasible".
Setting up Connection: I got the connection on the 3rd working day from the day I made the request. Installation charges Rs. 500 (No Deposit). But I heard they take deposit for Limited connection. Mine is Unlimited plan at Rs.999 per month (400 kbps. speed).
Speed: First time when I tested the connection, I was really surprised to see the speed was almost same as in my office. While the download speed often remains in and around 40 to 45 kbps, it is still good in indian conditions especially during peak hours.
*No need to buy a modem:
*Yes...with wimax you don’t need a modem. To make it clear, you should know how wimax works:
One small dish antenna sort of thing will be set up in you roof top and the wire will connect straight to a white color box (which is a imported one as the plug points are US styled) which will act as modem and will have network cable connected to it for the output.
*This instrument needs electric power and if power goes off then your net connection is gone.
Good thing is reliance don’t charge for it.
*Cons: Having said all good things about Reliance wimax till now, there are few drawbacks which I should point out here :
Reliability:
*Every time I switch on my laptop, I doubt whether I’ll get instant connectivity. First thing is that, you should connect to the reliance broadband site and login with your customer id and password to get connectivity. If you successfully do this and leave the computer idle for some time because of the automatic sign out functionality you’ll have to connect again :)
But I’m not complaining about this as reliability issue, the problem is many times I get the message "Limited or no connectivity" and some times I have to call the helpline to get it resolved. They accept the fact they had issues from their end and correct it within few hours.
*Customer Care:
*One of the main reason why most of us like / dislike a product is its after sale service and I should say reliance needs to improve this to a large extend. Within one week of installation , I was getting a error message "Network cable is unplugged" even though all cables were intact and I had a tough time in getting things corrected. Took two days for reliance people to come and they had to change the entire cable from antenna to network cable to set it right. Not sure how come they installed these kind of low quality cables.
Verdict:
Inspite of all these problems I’m still happy with the connection because first thing is that I do not have much choice and when the connection is working it is really fast. I would strongly recommend reliance wimax if you’re living in a place where you don’t get service from other service providers but if you have option I’ll still advice a wired connection especially from Airtel which I have seen working great in most of my friends home.