mgcarley
Founder, Hayai Broadband
Let me too add a voice of support to MTNL. I too think the article showed an anti-MTNL bias. From all the discussion on this thread, it is pretty clear that Airtel and MTNL are the two most popular ISPs for whatever reason. None of the others seem to even come close. So let us for argument sake list them as number 1 and 2 respectively although some may argue in favour of the reverse order.
In such a scenario to accuse MTNL of being unreliable is unfair because it is without any frame of reference. It therefore implies that MTNL is unreliable in comparison to even the Tatas and Tikonas of this world and that is certainly a totally unfair assessment by any standard.
I myself have been using MTNL for a few years now and have been reasonably satisfied. I started years ago using VSNL dialup. Later, with the advent of broadband, I shifted to IQARA, now called YOU. I had loads of downtime with YOU, the final straw being 36 days down. It was then that I shifted to MTNL. MTNL has a problem with customer care because the call centre people are not very bright. Now may I know which ISP has bright CC people?
I cannot argue that overall MTNL is better or worse than Airtel because I have not encountered the ISP of the latter but certainly had issues with their mobile phone CC.
In general I am satisfied that MTNL delivers what I pay for. To single them out for unreliable service is grossly unfair.
Note what I am saying. I am not claiming that the service is completely reliable as both MG and admin have provided cases of unreliability. But to single them out when they are probably in the top quartile at least is grossly unfair. You may have more complaints about MTNL but that could be because of higher penetration. I am sure 50% of unsatisfied customers will complain about service while a small fraction of one percent of the satisfied ones will declare satisfaction.
While Sushubh (@admin) and I can point out a number of people who experience significant downtime with MTNL, many others may be able to point to a number of people who do not experience much, if any downtime.
As with any ISP in India at the moment, unfortunately, the experience is never guaranteed and thus "your mileage may vary". We hope to change this which is why we're not working with cablewalas and everyone who has asked about franchising has been told that, even if we did franchise, they would have to adhere to *my* guidelines about building a network so as to not have anyone do a "half-assed" job and provide sub-standard service. They would also have to adhere to our official pricing (no extra hidden charges). That seems to scare off most of them.
While I agree that the article may have been wrong to single out MTNL, I agree for the most part that MTNL is probably as reliable or unreliable as any other ISP, however, the point was made for one reason only: MTNL is pretty much the only ISP left in India which does not have an explicit fair usage policy. I feel that the reason behind the author making this comment is this: yes, it has no FUP (yay), but obviously some percentage of the user-base complains about reliability (boo), which negates that particular positive aspect.
I hereby dub this predicament "Broadband Roulette" - do you feel lucky?
In such a scenario to accuse MTNL of being unreliable is unfair because it is without any frame of reference. It therefore implies that MTNL is unreliable in comparison to even the Tatas and Tikonas of this world and that is certainly a totally unfair assessment by any standard.
I myself have been using MTNL for a few years now and have been reasonably satisfied. I started years ago using VSNL dialup. Later, with the advent of broadband, I shifted to IQARA, now called YOU. I had loads of downtime with YOU, the final straw being 36 days down. It was then that I shifted to MTNL. MTNL has a problem with customer care because the call centre people are not very bright. Now may I know which ISP has bright CC people?
I cannot argue that overall MTNL is better or worse than Airtel because I have not encountered the ISP of the latter but certainly had issues with their mobile phone CC.
In general I am satisfied that MTNL delivers what I pay for. To single them out for unreliable service is grossly unfair.
Note what I am saying. I am not claiming that the service is completely reliable as both MG and admin have provided cases of unreliability. But to single them out when they are probably in the top quartile at least is grossly unfair. You may have more complaints about MTNL but that could be because of higher penetration. I am sure 50% of unsatisfied customers will complain about service while a small fraction of one percent of the satisfied ones will declare satisfaction.
While Sushubh (@admin) and I can point out a number of people who experience significant downtime with MTNL, many others may be able to point to a number of people who do not experience much, if any downtime.
As with any ISP in India at the moment, unfortunately, the experience is never guaranteed and thus "your mileage may vary". We hope to change this which is why we're not working with cablewalas and everyone who has asked about franchising has been told that, even if we did franchise, they would have to adhere to *my* guidelines about building a network so as to not have anyone do a "half-assed" job and provide sub-standard service. They would also have to adhere to our official pricing (no extra hidden charges). That seems to scare off most of them.
While I agree that the article may have been wrong to single out MTNL, I agree for the most part that MTNL is probably as reliable or unreliable as any other ISP, however, the point was made for one reason only: MTNL is pretty much the only ISP left in India which does not have an explicit fair usage policy. I feel that the reason behind the author making this comment is this: yes, it has no FUP (yay), but obviously some percentage of the user-base complains about reliability (boo), which negates that particular positive aspect.
I hereby dub this predicament "Broadband Roulette" - do you feel lucky?
