Speed
Sify ’’broadband’’ is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) providing the so
called ’’broadband’’ access to Hyderabad through our normal television
cable network. As indicated, the word ’’broadband’’ is a misnomer. Even
though it claims to provide a 64KBps line, what u have to keep in mind
is that this 64KBps is probably being shared by ur entire colony,
leaving u with the experience of a superior dial-up connection and
nothing more. My Statistical profiling has estimated that the average
download speed is about 5KBps. This is nowhere near the speed I am used
to in IITM, forget about the astronomical speeds at my univ in Austin.
Reliability
The advantage over the normal dial-up services comes in terms of
reliability, resulting in the sobriquet ’’24-hr narrowband’’ bing applied
for the cable net. What is the usual experience of a dial-up download.
You have downloaded 4MB of a 5MB software and what happens? Connection
lost!. The reason for this is quite technical-dynamic IP, peak load,
... etc, etc. The difference is that cablenet is quite similar to
ethernet, and gives u a static IP, which is much more reliable.
Service
The service provided by Sify is pathetic. Ever since I installed it, it
has been a pitched battle between innumerable viruses stalking the Sify
network and some anti-virus software marshalled by me. Every five
minutes some pop-up or the other comes up announcing the result of yet
another battle between my anti virus and the latest avatar of some
virus. My anti-virus eventually loses the battle and the virus
triumphantly declares that it will reboot my comp in 60sec. It even has
the audacity of showing a countdown window which I can only gloomily
watch while I try desperately try to save my stuff.
Do not pitch your hopes on the anti-virus stuff provided on
Sify’s website. It is an absolute sleeping watchman types.
The customer service provided by Sify leaves much to desire.
The woman (Oh!, why does it always have to be a woman) lifting the
telephone has absolutely no knowledge about the services offered (She
is probably the owner’s wife). After numberous phone calls complaining
about the viruses, she send a man two days later who thinks that my
internet connection is not working. He promises to send somebody else,
and after that there has been no response from Sify at all.
To think that this is all I get for paying 1000/- per month
when other ISPs charge only 600/- makes my blood boil.
Sorry, this is all I could type b4 the comp reboots again.