I have been using Sify Broadband for almost one and a half years. A close friend had got a connection and he recommended that to me. A detailed review follows:
The Good:
Connection Speed:
Mine was a 64 kbps connection and the downloads easily touched 6-8 KB per second. This makes me sure that the higher speed connection packs too, would be good.
Ease of payments:
Sify has a number of options for collecting payments(in my case, for the prepaid packs). They arrange for someone to come home and collect it. They also have an option of online payments. Quite good.
Value For Money:
The pre-paid packs offered by Sify are very paisa vasool(value for money). I am yet to see other providers offering anyting competing to Sify’s packs.
The Bad:
Consistency of connection:
Technically, given that it is a cable connection, it should be available 24 X 7. This is not the case with Sify. The connection went down once almost every two weeks. The software would pop up an error message, and I would have to call Sify Customer Care to get the connection working.
Technical Support:
The people working behind the connection are quite good. My connection would get working very soon after I call Sify Customer Care. It is a different case altogether that the connection should not go down in the first place.
And the Ugly:
Infrastructure:
From what Sify Customer Care tells me, Sify
does not own the complete infrastructure to provide a broadband
Internet service. Since the basic connectivity is via cable network,
Sify depends on the local cable operator for what is called ’Last Mile Connectivity’. Simply put, the cable operator is always the final link between Sify’s network and the user’s computer.
It
is for this reason that Sify becomes a very unreliable ISP. In my case,
the cable operator has refused to continue the service, and I am stuck
with no connection. There’s not much I can do about it.
*Customer Care Helpline:
*To say that it is pathetic would be appreciating it. My experience with Sify’s Customer Care has been very bad.
As I have mentioned earlier, the cable operator disconnected my net connection.
After this, for about one month, I kept calling Customer Care but all they said was that an engineer would come and check it the next day. Nobody came.
After about a month, the Customer Care executives ultimately relented and told me the truth that the connection was down because of the cable operator refusing to co-operate. Then, when I asked them to cancel my account, and refund me the balance, they said it can’t be done over the phone. I have to email them.
On 1 October 2007, I emailed them for refund and got an automated reply that they would get back within 24 hours. Nobody has replied till date.
Over the last 2 months, I must have made umpteen calls to them, and all they did was to say somebody in the back-end team will call me. Again, nobody called back.
I had dug out an email address in Sify Mumbai, and mailed that person. In reply, I only got an SMS saying, ’please contact only SIFY BB for your queries’.
For the last 10 days, I have been told that my cheque has been dispatched. But I haven’t got anything yet. Still waiting.
Moral of the story:
Go for it only if:
1) you are ok with the idea that it might get disconnected anytime
2) you trust your cable operator to continue its services
Of course, purchasing one of the post-paid packs from Sify would be recommended in any case.
Overall, it might work, but you can never be sure. And once you are stuck, it’s the end of the road for you.