Airtel Xstream Fiber Pune Review

This thread is related to Airtel Fiber Broadband experience in Pune/PCMC. I always try to update the thread with my personal experiences.​

Airtel Black:​

I was already using their 999 postpaid family plan, so opted for their 1799 airtel black plan which had 1+3 add on sim(999 family plan) and 200Mbps fiber broadband.The total bill comes out to be 2122(inc. gst). If i calculate the individual cost of the plans - 999+gst=1179 for postpaid and another 999+gst= 1179 for 200 Mbps broadband for both airtel and tata(varies if opting for long term plan), so total cost comes out to be around 2358 per month.
Opting for airtel black 1799+gst saves me around 2358-2122=236 rupees a month, which is not a huge amount honestly.
I paid 4000 rupees as advanced rental which saved all the installation and hardware cost, and this would be adjusted in my future billing cycle. I paid for 2 months in advanced roughly which seems fair.

Booking and installation:​

Headed to the airtel store which is just 1km away from my place, KYC and payment was done under 10 mins. They said that the installation might take time as there are a lot of new colonies and apartment buildings where airtel fiber is recently live, so they have a lot of pending installations. They promised me that installation will be done in maximum of 48 hours which is also mentioned on their website Airtel FAQ.
I booked the connection on 21st june 2023 around 4:30 in the evening. The installation team contacted me the next day around 7pm and it was done by 22nd june 2023 around 8:30 pm.

Router:​

Got the Sercomm AOT - 42221SR. Sleek and modern looking router. Performs decent, good range throughout the house. It switches automatically between 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz band, which is very convenient.
Update on 20th July 2023: The ONT is sub par in terms of performance w.r.t multiple client handling and bandwidth distribution. Ended up putting this router in bridge mode and used TP-Link Archer AX10 instead.
Setting up this router in bridge mode doesn't require any assistance from airtel. I got it working by myself.

Speedtest:​

Source
Download speed on some speedtest.net servers is over 450 most of the times. I don't know what is the reason. Didn't opt for static IP or anything. Upload speed is around 240-250 as per the plan which is acceptable.


Source

Source

Network Quality Test:​

Bufferbloat:

Bufferbloat Test Result: A+

View the full results, and test your own bufferbloat

www.waveform.com

A+ most of the times. Did the test over WiFi.

NPerf:

Latency:​

Getting good latency while playing valorant. 6-9ms to mumbai server.
Connection remains stable when connected to my office VPN.



Overall i am very happy with airtel fiber connection. Browsing, surfing and streaming experience is slightly better than Tata. This is just initial impressions tho. Will update this thread in the future in case of any major update.
After one month of testing:
Definitely better than Tata Play Fiber in terms of raw performance.

Update on 11th August:​

CC support and FR time has definitely improved atleast in Wakad/Pimple Saudagar area.

Update on 27th October:​

FR team now attends SRs in the given time slot.

 

[Lolita_Magnum]

Download speed difference is due to IPV4 and IPV6 speeds are individualized on Airtel, i.e., they are not shared.
Speedtest tries to download from both type of servers when Multi is selected.

 

[albonycal]

It's just their god tier engineering not complaining though.

 

[Deleted member 83050]

Update: Cannot change DNS from the ONT settings(common amongst most of the ISPs). If i try to change DNS configuration from my device, internet stops working.
Changed DNS to Google DNS 64. Is something wrong with Google's DNS 64 or DNS cannot be overridden at all?

 

[albonycal]

Airtel's network doesn't support NAT64

 

[Deleted member 83050]

Apologies for incorrect update on my previous reply.
I configured cloudflare's DNS (both IPv4 and IPv6) on my macbook and iPhone and it seems to be working. Is there a way to know if it is being overriden by airtel's default DNS?
Also, how do i know if my IP address is behind CG-NAT or is it still public IP?
My IP is in the range 182.xx
Also, the default firewall security level setting in the ONT homepage is set to high, should i set it to low? I am unware of the consequences eitherways, if someone can throw some light on these questions .

 

[albonycal]

Your IP is a public one. CGNAT uses 100.64.0.0/10 range

 

[Deleted member 83050]

Update:
Switched to Cisco DNS yesterday just out of curiosity. Browsing experience has been significantly better. Page loading time has reduced and overall browsing and surfing feels faster and snappy.

 

[amol1212]

@rajat_ I'm a New User. I have 200 MBPS Airtel Xstream Plan with GX Router. I'm not at all satisfied with Browsing Experience. Can you recommend anything. I'm From Karad, Maharashtra

 

[Deleted member 83050]

@amol1212 I don't have any issues in my connection.
Try doing a BufferBloat Test and share the results. Also make sure you have enabled WMM(Wi-Fi Multimedia) in your router settings page. I had some issues with my Tata Play connection because this setting was disabled. Make sure the yellow patch cable isn't bend from anywhere, it can cause issues.