VSNL service (at least in Chennai) is pretty good when you look at the no of subscribers its handling, not only individuals, but corporates as well.
The good thing about VSNL setup is that you dont need a CD for doing the setup, you can log on to the VSNL site once you connect thru modem and can activate your coneection.
The people at the VSNL office were efficient (surprise!!!) and nice. One person even got out from his seat and bought me an envelope when I requested for one!!!!(Hard to find in Govt establishments)
I took a festival offer from VSNL, 1750 Rs for 250 hrs and I think that it was a bargain. After 10 :00 in the night, I get pretty good speed, the only problem I face is frequent disconnet from the server dur to excessive noice in my phone line (as I have a make-shift connection to the modem which as setup by a very un-experienced guy - me!!!)
The faciliy of checking you the VSNL Webmail online (its a pretty fast site), checking your account information online, paying ur bills, etc etc are damn good.
The 24 hr Support line is well manned, but are not by very good technical people. I had a laptop with XP installed, they didnt have the autodialer for XP!!!! When I installed the normal autodialer, it screwed up and I had to un-install it and do a manual configuration(which I suggest all you do, even a lay man can do it, its easy)
With TATA in the fray, it may get better, (TCS may get a better network connectivity though, just kidding....) The services of VSNL would get better only when we have decent phone lines. The old copper wires have to go.
What ever it may be, VSNL is better then at-least Satyam online, because I have experienced both. (I couldnt even complete my Satyam online activation, and there was no-one on the support helpline to help me)
Cos’ - -
What ever may be the gateway configuration or capacity or the bandwitdh(there are talks of increasing the current bandwidth to 128), everything boils down to the 1-2 millimeter wide copper wire which takes our request and opens up the WWW for us.