The Broadband scene in India
The broadband revolution was kick started in India by BSNL broadband service known as Dataone around Jan 2005, Seriously before BSNL broadband, the so call broadband that was given by local cable wallas and they were proud to call 64kpbs as broadband some even advertised 32kpbs as broadband, I am glad that at least that is over now, but it’s almost 3 years from the start of broadband revolution let’s take a view how far we have reached in terms of broadband penetration in India.
According to TRAI at the end of March 2007 out of 40.57 million internet users in India there were just 2.34 Million broadband subscribers this includes users from pvt operators, the current figure is around 2.7 Million which in my opinion is a failure in terms of putting up India on the information highway, the Govt had setup a target of achieving 9 Million broadband subscribers by 2007, Now this revised target has been set to 20 Million broadband connection by the year 2010 
Some of the broadband providers in India
Out of the providers listed above I have personally used BSNL, Reliance, Hathway, Tata Indicomm and Aritel (current provider) and will give my personal opinions regarding the same.
BSNL Broadband: The biggest one, I must have been one of there initial subscribers from March 2005 and used it as my primary connection for almost 2 years, and the uptime during the same was great, the beauty of BSNL broadband is it just works and is pretty reliable but sometimes during peak hours the latecny is a bit high and you just don’t get good speeds. Pricing wise I have to say BSNL is the best, but the downside of the same is if your connection has problems then don’t expect a prompt solution for the same, it might take from a couple days to week to get it resolved based on the issue.
Pages: 1 2
It was a wonderful article. Can you compare in terms of the rates they offer in different cities!
hi, that was really informative, but tell me seriously are u being sponsored by airtel people coz as far as i know my friends have a horrible experience using airtel in terms of speed. service is good as customer support is concerned but billing and speeds are pathetic.
tata is the worst, and i am going to plug it off now next, coz they have very poor customer service, billing probs, speeds are half the promised and no credits for downtime or no connection.
i also have a mtnl connection which is the best in here, billing is arbitrary and customer support similar to bsnl as u have described.
maybe i will try some other alternatives and keep u posted, i am still searching for good speeds, better customer service and affordable tariffs.
seriously, for me rates are not an issue if some body provides promised speed with better cusomer support, but u know the broadband wont take-off in india to reach desired levels unless the rates are brought down further.
also i don’t understand why these isp’s still have plans for 64, 128 kbps just to fool people and increase their customer base, whereas the www is becoming more and more bandwidth hungry.
just a banter on indian scene.
thanks
Hi Pradeep,
No airtel or any other ISP don’t sponsor me…….. well I would be happy if they did
but its not like that, the experience that I have provided are my personal.
I have been online from 1996 from the dial-up days, I got first got my broadband connection via a cable modem for which I had to fork 20,000 bucks for the modem and pay 1000 bucks/ month for a meager 64kbps connection, so we have come far from that.
I have been using aritel now for the past 9 months and I am not facing any problems (they did had some speed problems in the evenings from around 7pm – 11pm for about 15-20 days) after complaints it got resolved and 85% of the time I get speeds that have been promised and the uptime is great.
TRAI has just recently written to all the ISPs to get rid of the Up to 256 Kbps ambiguity and serve atleast 256 Kbps internet connection, so I hope these pathetic speeds that some ISP’s provide should hopefully be solved.
i m using airtel broadband and i feel its gr8. They do hav problem of setting up the connection for ur residence (need at least 10 subscribers in that area)….thr packages r gud ..lots of variety as per requirement…..thr support s/w which they provide with the connection is really gud (netXpert 2.0)…as for customer service they hav taken thr lessons from the mobile region…it seems they will get a large subscription base due 2 thr aggressive marketing strategy (tie ups with builders)…..
Hi ranjit ,so far u provided great information which helped me alot. I would be pleased if u can tell me which wireless connection is suitable to make skype calls while ur travelling? cuz i hav been enquiring this for last 15 days,can u pls guide me…
Dear Sandeep,
By wireless high speed mobile internet connection I mean you are refering to mobile broadband.
You can try Airtel, Vodaphone EDGE based data cards but the speeds on them are not that great and might not be useful to be used with skype while traveling.
The ideal solution for you would be to wait for mobile based 3G cards which should be launched in a couple of month with the roll out of 3G services.
Leave your response!
Categories
Archives
Recent Comments
Disclaimer: The posts / opinions expressed on this website are my own personal opinions and do not represent the views of any company or organization.