Precious Netcom Pvt. Ltd. (PNPL) ISP Experience

I have been on PNPL for over two months now ever since my LCO moved me over from ANI Broadband and I just wanted to share my experience with them. I'm currently using PNPL as a backup for Tripleplay connection.

Installation/Pricing:

There was no separate installation because the same LCO provides both PNPL and ANI; so if you want my installation experience, you can check it out on my other thread ANI Broadband 100Mbit Plan experience | ANI Broadband

ANI had turned bad for me, with very low speeds and packet loss to international servers at peak times. Around mid-Feb , ANI went down completely for me and LCO wasn't able to fix it quickly (presumably because they didn't have SLA?), so they swapped me over to PNPL.

The funny thing is, before I got fiber installed at my home; the same LCO provided me with PNPL (1000/month for 100Mbit) and when I told him that international speeds were trash, he told me to switch to fiber and get ANI for 2000/month (100Mbit) . It worked quite well for me for around a year, until it too started screwing up.
Now, they want me to pay 2000/month for the same thing that I was paying 1000/month a year ago.

DNS Hijacking:

PNPL has DNS Hijacking just like most other small ISPs. This can be bypassed by using encrypted DNS (DoH or DoT); I'm currently using AdGuard Home for network wide encrypted CloudFlare/Google/OpenDNS.
If you host your own DNS Server or want to use a DNS Server without encryption this might be a problem for you.

No Public IP:

My LCO had told me that they will provide me static IP on PNPL for Rs. 500 Extra monthly but they never ended up giving me one (I didn't make any payment so it wasn't much of an issue). You'll get shitty CGNAT without any IPv6 instead. This isn't much of a problem for me as PNPL is only a backup ISP for me; but if want to use it as primary connection and you want public IP then PNPL isn't for you.

Speeds:

Like most ISPs, you will get full speeds to peered servers all the time, PNPL has been decent with non-peered speeds but the problem is it drops very low during weekends and peak hours.

Here are some speedtests at 2PM:

Servers: MNR Broadband (Delhi,peered), Singtel (SG), GTT.Net (London), Spectrum (NYC), AT&T (NYC).

It can drop really low during weekends (this test was done on 2nd Feb (Sunday) at 10PM:

Usually, it doesn't stoop this low (around 30-40Mbit on weekends).


Usenet speeds are 'fine' but its not reaching even close to full capacity (~12MB/s) with 60 connections and is quite spiky going between 7-10MB/s compared to flat 11-12MB/s on Tripleplay

Torrents are kinda hard to measure but I did try Ubuntu ISO, it was able to get beyond 100Mbit (around ~15MB/s) but the problem is it only got to this speed half way through the download (you can see the 7.7MB/s avg). It was initally quite slow at 4-5MB/s and this is a torrent with tons of seeders.

Also, good luck getting any upload on private trackers as PNPL doesn't have either IPv6 or any option for Public IP (paid or otherwise), so you are mostly closed off from the internet.

I also tried some test files such as Leaseweb files https://mirror.leaseweb.com/speedtest/10000mb.bin and DigitalOcean SG files SGP1 Speedtest | DigitalOcean .

With Leaseweb file on Firefox (no download manager) I was getting around ~3MB/s compared to ~9MB/s with Tripleplay (I let both download for 1 minute before checking).
With DigtialOcean SG file, I got ~16MB/s on PNPL and ~12MB/s on Tripleplay.

 

[a.c]

Same case with excitel (Location - Delhi).
Mtr to 8.8.8.8

HOST:                                     Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1. AS???    DESKTOP-3SOL4QV.mshome.net   0.0%    10    0.3   0.7   0.3   1.2   0.3
  2. AS???    192.168.0.1                  0.0%    10    3.6   2.4   1.6   3.6   0.7
  3. AS133982 103.211.16.1                 0.0%    10    3.8   4.3   2.9   7.4   1.4
  4. AS???    ???                         100.0    10    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  5. AS133982 103.56.231.1                 0.0%    10    4.7   6.6   4.2  14.4   3.0
  6. AS15169  209.85.172.217               0.0%    10    2.9   6.5   2.9  21.1   5.4
  7. AS15169  74.125.243.97                0.0%    10    8.1   5.9   4.4   8.1   1.0
  8. AS15169  172.253.67.97                0.0%    10    6.9   5.9   4.9   7.6   0.9
  9. AS15169  dns.google                   0.0%    10    3.5   4.2   3.5   5.0   0.5

Mtr to 1.1.1.1 (goes through Extreme IX)

HOST:                                     Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1. AS???    DESKTOP-3SOL4QV.mshome.net   0.0%    10    1.1   0.9   0.4   1.5   0.3
  2. AS???    192.168.0.1                  0.0%    10    7.2   2.8   1.6   7.2   1.8
  3. AS133982 103.211.16.1                 0.0%    10    3.6   4.4   3.2   6.6   1.0
  4. AS???    ???                         100.0    10    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  5. AS133982 103.56.231.1                 0.0%    10    4.8   5.5   4.1   9.3   1.5
  6. AS???    as13335.bom.extreme-ix.net   0.0%    10   26.2  30.8  26.2  54.7   8.6
  7. AS13335  one.one.one.one              0.0%    10   25.8  26.9  25.8  29.4   1.1

 

[varkey]

For me on Excitel Bangalore, 8.8.8.8 goes via Extreme IX Mumbai though.

 

[vignesh_venkatesan]

You can get Google peering for free.
Isps which are using IX to exchange traffic with Google are not peered directly, instead there are part of the ix and can exchange data with other members of the IX.
Peering is getting a assigned 1G or 10G port exclusively to exchange traffic between the said isp and Google.
Imho getting a separate link to Google is worth it as Google and its services generate huge traffic and 1G or 10G port at IX like extremeIX will pretty much help to manage traffic to other players like amz or cloudflare.

 

[vignesh_venkatesan]

@varkey Though Bangalore is the IT Hub of India, the internet infrastructure of b'lore sucks.
There is only one exchange that too is Nixi which is pretty much useless.
ISPs in Bangalore should basically purchase a link to Chennai or Mumbai from isp like Railtel or Other telcos to provide internet.
Traffic stats of Nixi router at Bangalore

The only useful Nixi locations are Mumbai,Chennai and Delhi.

 

[Realme]

why is NIXI@Bangalore so under-utilized?

Also why do they use 10G ports at IX-level, these day when companies are giving out 100+ mbps plans won't it saturate quickly.
I guessed IX level must be 40G/100G multiple ports?

*sorry noob here

 

[JB701]

I got my second RIPE Atlas Probe for PNPL: RIPE Atlas

Thanks @Anurag Bhatia

 

---

[JB701]

Found something interesting today about PNPL
When I turn my VPN (Surfshark Indore Server) on I get >300Mbps

Without VPN:

What makes this even more interesting is that my plan is 50Mbps

 

[JB701]

So after seeing how well PNPL is performing now, I decided to get their 200Mbps plan for 2500 a month and its amazing:

International uploads are a bit low but its acceptable, sometimes its at 200 Mbps and other times uploads are low. Peered speed does drop to ~200Mbps for a few hours after 9PM but international speeds are consistent at 250Mbps most of the time for some reason. Maybe PNPL got their shit together. I should probably update my review.

LCO also told me that static IP will be available "soon".

Considering Excitel Fiber 300Mbps wont be in my area anytime soon, I will be using this as my primary connection from now on.

 

[igloo]

2500 for 200mbps is a rip off price. I think he knows you'll easily pay 2500 from last ani experience.
So all his plans are price 2500 only. IMO this plan should not cost more than 1500.
Though speeds are awesome. This is over fiber?

 

[JB701]

yeah its completely overpriced. i tried to get him to accept 200Mbps for 2k but he told me if I paid 3 months upfront then he will provide it for that price.

yea its over fiber.