TPF v/s Airtel - Long term review and comparison (Pick your poison)

[_rajat]

You can't do it on your own, get in touch with Customer care, they will do it happily. First make sure you have a good quality dual band router to dial up PPPoE.
Also do a traceroute to identify where the ping is spiked.

 

[theOne235]

also @_rajat
if we use any DPI circumvention tools like goodbyeDPI, are they going to help with the latency or the browsing smoothness as you said? any idea?

 

[_rajat]

I never used any DPI bypassing tool. I don't think it's going to help with latency buy browsing should be slightly better ig. Give it a try and let us know?

 

[Chip]

Interesting thread. Back to this forum after a while.

I just upgraded my TPF connection to 500 (previously 100 Mbps) and kept the Airtel at 100 Mbps (previously 300) as a backup. It used to be the other way round all these years.

Frankly Airtel Support has dropped badly and I dread calling them on the rare occasion the connection remains down for a long time. Requesting a static IP is like throwing a bomb into a crowd these guys go berserk and dont act on it for days sometimes over a week before they come up with a reason to reject the request. Mind you I had a static ip in the past for the longest time (refer to my old msgs) but stopped it after they raised the prices. At this time it is 299 + GST which I am not willing to pay.

TPF another long standing fav of mine seems to have cut down their support staff. But today I asked for a static IPv4 and it was assigned in a few minutes and got an email confirmation. They have discontinued the free static IPv6. Big difference between Airtel and TPF is in TPF the static IP is not required to be inputted into your router. Just use your PPPoE dialer and it does the job. Airtel requires manual inputting of the IP gateway and subnet mask.

There are latency quibbles every now and then. But I am not a gamer any more. By and large these two top tier ISPs are providers of my choice. Have had them both for 6-7 years now. No regrets. My only wish is they would drop the prices of 500 and 1G plans. Airtel doesnt offer a 500 Mbps plan at all.

PS - TPF IPv4 is Rs 200 + tax. I find TPF also gives some good cash back offers which you can use for the next recharge. They also have a smart speaker offer. TPF is prepaid and Airtel Black postpaid

 

[jehunix]

@Chip how much are you paying for 500Mbps? Do you have any other cheaper alternatives? I honestly think 500Mbps plan is worth it with TPF at all given their atrocious pricing.

 

[Chip]

@jehunix I pay Rs 2700+GST per month but use the cash back scheme with what they call "all" OTTs. Renewal is for 3 months at a go. So they give you a cash back which you can use for the next renewal. Works out cheaper that way. It also gets slightly less expensive if you renew for 6 or 12 months

There are cheaper alternatives in Pune and the first one that comes to mind is ACT at literally 1/2 the price. But I dont get their service in my area of the city so that's not an option. There are other local guys offering cheaper subscriptions for 500 Mbps but again once you get used to the level of service from Airtel and TPF it's not easy to shift. These 2 ISPs are the leaders.

 

[jehunix]

@Chip are you paying for yearly plan? coz i checked 1 month and 3 month plan - they were costing me some 3,800 and 4,600 which is crazy pricing. Rn paying 3186 for 3 months (500Mbps). I'm eagerly waiting for ACT to expand in Pune too. Their 1Gbps plan under 2,000 is no brainers then.

I don't know also if service would be any better with Airtel and TPF compared to local guys. Airtel doesn't allow you to bridge easily. Too much static IP charges and you can't connect to human easily at all. And TPF thinks they are in US and charge more than AT&T or other fiber players in US for their higher tier plans...

 

[Chip]

@jehunix the latest subscription charges are on their website here: Best Unlimited Broadband plans Make sure you select Pune as the city.

For which BB provider charges Rs 3186 for 3 months? ACT would be ideal price wise I am not sure how their service is. Remember Tata/VSNL, Airtel, Reliance Jio are also backbone bandwidth providers. Most tier 2 and 3 ISPs get their lines from them. I reckon BSNL is a backbone provider too.

I am paying for the 3 month plan at this time. Discounts start if you pay for 6 or 12 month subs. BTW I was on You BB for some time before getting FTTH. It's a fairly decent service. Yes unfortunately high bandwidth connections get really expensive. Frankly a 100 Mbps connection is the sweet spot for most people even those families doing 4K streaming. I have even tried 1G from TPF many years back but it was a disappointment. Rolled back to 300 for the most part and then down to 100 as Airtel was my primary connection. I just had an impulse to try the 500 Mbps connection.

 

[jehunix]

@Chip Subscription plans of TPF are still too costly to justify. I checked both their website and their local Pune contact (Nilesh), and the pricing just doesn't add up.

For comparison, YOU Broadband FTTH is giving me 500 Mbps for ₹3,186/quarter. I've been on it for a month now and I'm happy with the service so far and they even installed same-day. Now major downtimes except once for 2 hours (fiber-cut) which was notified.

A 100 Mbps plan isn't a sweet spot for me, unfortunately. I'm running 30-40 devices across a 5BHK home: 3 TVs, multiple laptops and computers, plus a ton of IoT, tablet, and mobile devices. I was earlier on a 300 Mbps Gazon plan which was decent, but my device count has grown well past what it can comfortably handle. I've also added Hathway (200 Mbps) as a backup now, running in load-balance mode through my Ubiquiti (UGC Ultra) setup.

100% uptime in last 4 days! And its been outstanding performance with YOU considering the price. Support is nice and staff proactive too!!! Theres no way I can justify paying so much for TPF. Also I don't want 30+ OTTs but just bandwith and no bullshit plans. TPF can't offer that at all. But I'll surely consider ACT when it'll be avalable.

 

[_rajat]

TPF another long standing fav of mine seems to have cut down their support staff.

@Chip True but TPF's service is still far ahead from Airtel. Their ground team is still incompetent but very responsive here in my area.
Most of the downtime here for both TPF and Airtel is because of some backend issue like maintenance work or something, there is no fiber cable cuts as such because both of them have layed underground cables.
Airtel seems to have very long downtime like you mentioned and their support is straight up ass. TPF on the other hand has better customer care support, I can call them directly or talk to an actual human from their chatbot, they raise a ticket immediately and I get a callback from the technician within 1-2 hours. Airtel seems to have delegated a lot of stuff to AI chatbot which is kinda frustrating, it doesn't even let me lodge a service ticket.

Local ISPs are there but ig it's not my thing. These guys have stick up their butt and there is no gaurentee of service, no accountability at all. They are slightly cheaper but it's better to pay a slight premium for ISPs like Airtel and TPF. Support level can vary but atleast they are apologetic about issues and happily compensate for the downtime.

Btw @Chip do you also notice sluggish browsing on TPF? Asking because it's quite a pain in my case. Ik ISPs have issues from time to time and TPF will iron these things out eventually but they have not bothered to fix this particular issue for the longest time(you can go through the thread I have described what exactly the issue is) even after reporting it multiple times.