Nov 06, 2009 11:28 PM
3051 Views
After using BSNLs Reasonable Speed 256 kbps line for almost a year, decided to buy this one as the modem went bust and I waited an eterninty to get it recified and did not happen, and wanted a portable internet solution since I travel a lot. Had two options: Reliance or Tata - Both Old India Bureaucratic companies - But decieded to choose the lesser of the two.
I got the 10GB plan - 1249 per month inclusive of taxes. Have been using it for 6 months now. I am a full blown internet junkie and well, it has been quite stifling. But cant help it - BSNL and Airtel hardline broadband ports in my area are fully utilized, and the others are not present - Hathway, Sify, Reliance etc.
Lets get into things one by one:
SPEED: Aah, the most important thing when it comes to a Broadband connection. This one has good sppeds I tell you - Once I got upto 1200 kbps! No kidding. But the problem is that you will have to be extremely lucky for that. When you get the speed, you get it. Most of the time you dont, and your speed slows down to a trickle.
SPEED RELIABILITY: How much you can be sure the connection delivers consistent reliable speed: Photon+ Can be compared to a corporation public water tap. Most of the time its dry, or either a trickle but once in a while it delivers with water gushing through the tap for some time especially when no one is around to notice it. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the most irritating feature of the product. Absolutely kickass high speed at one moment, and 'Internet Explorer/Firefox Cannot Display this Website' at the next. Most of the time it being the latter.
The speeds are so unpredictable, and mostly you will not get any speed at all. It is so frustrating and irritating at times when you will have to sit and twiddle your thumbs while your page takes ages to load. Then it fails to load completely and you have to keep refreshing and finally in utter frusturation you give up. The speed spike suddenly for a couple of minutes and then go down for hours together, remember this is a WIRELESS connection and it shares the same tower used by numerous TATA Indicom and Virgin (DOCOMO is GSM) customers, not to mention other Photon customers. In case of a 'Network congestion' for which TATA is notorious of, the whole thing goes bust. I have to refresh Yahoo atleast 10 times to read the full page. Enough said.
BILLING: Remember, the entire thing is dependent on the amount of data you use. Once your hallowed 10GB is up, you will have to pay up for every MB you use. So you will be provided with some way to see how much of data you have used till now, right? Wrong.
There is absolutely NO way of finding how much data you have used, using, and so on. Any time you call the helpline: unbilled amount: zero. Website: zero. Anything else: Zero. You cannot know how much data you have used during the month, you can only know when you get the bill at the end of the month, and any complaints will be entertained only after you pay up in full. Howwzzat!
COMPAINTS AND RESOLUTION: Well in this case these guys are better off than most, despite the fact that complaints can be registered only between 7 am and 10 pm. If you have an issue ither than these times, please wait on your a$$e$. But I got wrongly billed for Rs.8700, I promptly raised a complaint and 1. got my amount waived off for two months and 2. got a letter for the same.
I raised 2 complaints for slow speed and the next day I had an executive at my house trying to rectify the problem, only to end up and the guy asking me: "Any openings in your company saar?"
But the waiver of charges for 3 months was pretty cool... you pjust have to be assertive enough :)
END OF THE STORY: Get a wireline broadband connection: Coz you will be assured of your bandwidth: You will share your bandwidth only with other wired customers, and not with mobile phone users.
A wireless connection can be useful only in case you travel a lot and need to be connected always.. If you want to have continuous speed and reliablr connectivity, this is not for you or ME
I had to save this in a notepad and submit 6 times before this was active.. God help me. Waiting for some Airtel ports (tags) to become free.
Slow Speed
Vadakkus
