I bought a VSNL account for my mother sometime ago. The scheme (as they called it) was for 100hrs and cost me Rs.750/~ The 100 hours are during weekdays. Nights and weekends are free. Which means that she could stay online from friday midnight to sunday midnight for free.(telephone calls made to the server are not free)
The speed seems pretty good. Quite comparable to the university internet I use here in US. Voice chat and telephony calls made are excellent.
Also I bought it online by a credit card for her. Gone are the days where you had to goto dadar or fashion street to buy the internet and stand in a queue for hours.
I am pretty happy the way VSNL has evolved.
Hope MTNL starts charging a flat fee for telephone usage soon.
Adios....