VirusBand. Review on Sify Broadband Internet Connection

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.