I wanted this connection for my office - applied for it and was initially told that I have to pay Rs 2500 extra for a static IP (which I need), and other things are exactly same as a residential connection. I kept asking them for a premium plan for commercial (I don't want the speed to drop after 35GB) - but they said they have no such plan. After a week, they installed the connection, but did not give me a static IP. When I asked about static IP, I was told that I have to submit Network Diagram, Company Registration Docs, etc!! I have static IP from Airtel, and there are no such requirements from Airtel. They then got back to me saying they don't have static IP! I then told them to give me a DHCP connection itself - so they installed it. The trouble with their DHCP is that they don't have standard login procedure - like PPPoE, etc. They force you to login manually through a web-page. In my setup, the connection is given to a
router, and then fed to several computers on the LAN. Also, I use the internet not just from the browser, but also from other applications (like Market Data applications for stock market data, or directly from apps on my phone, etc). In such a scenario, because of their non-standard login procedure, I could not setup my router to login automatically. And I don't know which user's browser will show the login webpage, so I have to give password to everyone! When I asked their customer person for help, he came over and said that there is no way to avoid the manual login process, unless I get static IP, paying Rs 2500. I told him I was ready to pay, but was told static IP is not available. He said, no problem, we can give you static IP, and again took the Network diagram. After 2 days, he called saying "Sorry, static IP is not possible". So I have asked them to refund the money (Rs 500 installation). While they have told me verbally that they will refund, the actual refund has not been done yet. My opinions:- Might be OK for basic residential use, but not for power users. You can't do BitTorrent etc from this connection - because it will suddenly ask you for password, and you have to enter it manually in a webpage. Cannot setup to work 24/7 automatically. I have a high end
Cisco Router, but even that router does not support entering user id and password manually on a web page!!- Ping to the gateway is excellent. My Airtel DSL shows me ping times of 35-40 ms to the gateway, whereas ACT can get me 1-4 ms ping to gateway.- Their technical support and their product itself is geared towards basic users, but the prices are more suited for power users. For basic users, their prices will not be attractive. For power users their prices are attractive, but service is not suitable.- Their technical team and customer service team lacks training. Even they don't know whether static IP is possible or not. Even now - after almost 10 days of this issue being raised, I still get response like "Pls wait sir, we will get you static IP", etc!- Their DHCP settings show that they do not have much technical knowledge about routing etc. Pretty much every ISP will send settings for "default route" along with the DHCP connection. They send a setting for connecting to their
DNS server, but do not provide a default route. I guess they expect that the router will already provide a default route automatically!! Or they expect you to directly connect to a PC, in which case this is not relevant. In Airtel or any other ISP, you will automatically get a default route, sending all traffic to 0.0.0.0 address
mask 0.0.0.0 to the gateway.- Even when I ask them about these missing default routes, I get very uninformed response, as if they cannot even understand what I am talking about! This concept is good, but they need to train their technical and customer service staff more if they want to attract power users and commercial users. And they also need to have systems that are flexible enough to allow things like static IP, etc.
