ACT Fibernet FTTH Bangalore Review: 300 Mbps

[ryuk_]

1.5 TB is enough for me I believe. ACT has always been very peculiar with their FUP limits. My monthly data usage hovers from 500-700GB, not a very heavy downloader.
But yeah I get your point, 1.5TB is less for someone who opts for a 400 or 500 Mbps connection and expecting to download games or torrents. A gigabit connection with such a limit doesn't make any sense.

 

[droid]

I didn't know this limit and assumed 3300GB was the limit. such shady tactics man

 

[varunc24]

Not sure if the website is right on the FUP limit. If I login to the selfcare portal of my ACT connection the limit shown is 3300GB

 

[ryuk_]

Can confirm the same after logging into the selfcare portal. Its 3300 GB.

 

[ryuk_]

24 Hours Observations:
1. Both download and upload speeds are very consistent to majority servers. There's no throttling I observed for my use case. I tried to upload and download files from google drive and downloaded a couple of games from stream and epic games.
2. Browsing experience is significantly better than Airtel(atleast for me). Airtel used to take a lot of time loading some websites like reddit, instagram and a few other tech blogs and forums I follow.
3. Streaming is also pretty smooth. No lags or unnecessary buffers. I guess this was pretty much given, nothing special about it.
4. Video calling(mostly Zoom, MST and a few whatsapp video calls) is great. Better than Airtel I'd say, Airtel used to give some issues in whatsapp calls where the video feed was not very clear and became jittery at times. In both cases other people in the house where streaming or browsing on the internet simultaneously.
5. My Work VPN is also working fine with ACT. This used to be a problem with Airtel for 5-10% of the time during the day.
6. There was this weird issue where I was not able to send or receive whatsapp messages when connected to Airtel Wifi. Restarting the router would fix the issue. Not faced anything like that with ACT.

Overall, switching to ACT from Airtel has resolved all my complains I had from Airtel. Tbh I don't care about the upload and download speeds but the browsing, streaming and video calling experience matters the most for me and my family members. I don't download anything apart from games. Airtel is also pretty consistent with upload/download speeds and uptime but the overall experience was a little sluggish with parents complaining of occasional buffering and high load time in specific duration of the day. I had to restart the router multiple times in a day to get it working properly, which was annoying for parents when I was not home or out of town.

Uptime is something which I can't comment on right now but heard I've heard good reviews from my neighbours who are using ACT since last 2-3 years. All the connections in my area got upgraded to FTTH afaik.

 

[Stranger75]

@ryuk_ Oh! It's the exact same ONT that they installed at my place, prior to me replacing it with the TP-Link one. It appears that they are slowly moving to true FTTH everywhere. To be honest, it's a much better setup than Airtel and Jio, where they refuse to provide similar ONT devices and will only provide us with combo units that needs to be switched to bridge mode. We can use any traditional router that we purchase ourselves. A lot more flexible.

That being said, your wiring was done much better than mine. I think the people employed by ACT at my place dropped the ball when it came to wiring.

 

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[ryuk_]

Received a bill of 500 rupees today from ACT in the name of "Security Deposit for ONT"

As per the sales person at the time of buying new connection, it was informed that the installation and router would be completely free on 6 months advanced rental plan. Any sort of security deposit was not mentioned. I have put up a mail with their customer support regarding the same. I have asked them to remove the charges as it was not informed prior taking the connection.
Such shady tactics they try to pull in order to extract money from the customer. 6 months of advanced rental is not enough for them. I mean 500 is not a big amount but it should be informed while taking the connection.

 

[ryuk_]

Seems like ACT is very adamant on squeezing more money off my pocket in the name of ONT security deposit. They didn't respond to my emails for 4 days and just now called me trying to justify the security deposit. I asked the guy to send me a link to their terms and conditions where the security deposit is mentioned, he said we will check and get back to you.
Man, I paid for 6 months advanced rental and this money is not enough for them. Although I have no complains with the internet as of now and paying another 500 rupees as "security deposit" is not a big deal, I still feel they are just trying to squeeze money from me for some reason. I have put an email to their escalation team, appellate and nodal officer regarding the same but no response yet.
Honestly I don't have the time to fight or argue with them, if they waive off the charges I'd be okay with that.

@Stranger75 did you pay any security deposit when you got the connection?

 

[Stranger75]

@ryuk_ I did pay the security deposit, but they actually did inform me prior to installation. So, it did not surprise me when I got the bill.

 

[ryuk_]

Observations after 10 days and comparison with Airtel:​

General Observations:​

Internet has not went down even for a second in last 10 days. The supplied router(TP-Link WiFi6 AX1500) is top notch and I didn't even restart it once. This experience is quite different from Airtel where I had to restart the router multiple times, pages won't load, high pings, and connection time out.
I have already mentioned that browsing felt snappier on ACT compared to Airtel. I changed to Cisco DNS and it got even better. Youtube, instagram, netflix, reddit and twitter, everything loads blazingly fast and overall the difference b/w ACT and Airtel is quite significant in this aspect. Nobody in the house is complaining about "internet not working" anymore and I don't have to restart the router again and again.

Power Backup 'Jugaad':​

I have bought a DC splitter cable and using a single UPS to power both ONU and router. It works flawlessly. I am not sure how long the backup lasts as we have power backup in our apartment which kicks in after 3-4 seconds when power goes off. I just didn't want the router/ONU to restart due to power outage. I am using the Oakter mini UPS and it has been reliable so far(using it since last 6-7 months).

Speeds and pings:​

I don't perform speedtests but both download and upload speed seems to be fine. It's always 350-400 Mbps on 300 Mbps plan which is great.

I couldn't find time to play or download games yet, will surely update when I do that. Valorant mumbai server ping is around 17-24ms and singapore is around 40-45ms which is great. Will post a more detailed review later related to gaming when I get time to do so.

Clear advantage over Airtel:​

I am very happy with the fact that ACT didn't go with cheap chinese ONTs as it was a major complain I had with Airtel. Providing a separate ONU and a Wifi6 router from a established brand was a great move.ACT is a broadband only company whereas Airtel has multiple ventures. The difference clearly shows up in their business decisions.
Switching to ACT has solved almost all my complains I had with Airtel.
300 Mbps plan is significantly cheaper than Airtel even without the discount ACT provided. ACT effectively costs me 1279 per month(gst inc) and Airtel costs around 1780 rupees(gst inc).

Shortcomings and negatives:​

There's no option to change my plan speed before the renewal date which is 28th Feb 2025. I don't feel the need to upgrade/downgrade my plan but they should at least provide an option to do the same.
Their customer care is not the best. I have already shared my experience above, not going to mention it again. read it here.

I will keep updating the thread in case of any updates/complains.