XStream Fiber BB - V-Fiber VDSL to FTTH upgrade experience

[zerosleeping]

My airtel VDSL connection at my mothers home was put up in "Safe Custody" since April 2023 and I was chasing up airtel folks to get my building wired for FTTH. Airtel charged me only 500+gst once during the 21 months the upgrade was pending as I had categorically stated in the letter given to the airtel physical store that connection would only be reactivated upon getting optical fiber at my place.

My backup cable plan from the local cable provider became my primary connection all this while, as I was stuck in my mom's home due to her medical emergency.

Our RWA had apprehensions giving permissions to airtel and then the local municipality got rid of all the poles in our area which kept the upgrade on hiatus as airtel couldn't wire up the buildings in absence of street poles. After meeting a kind senior official in airtel (planning department) and pushing the wiring permissions in our general body meeting I was finally able to persuade adjacent buildings to approve airtel wiring as they were going to bring cables overhead (building to building from their nearest NOC). A meeting with airtel team on 5th December 2024 got the ball rolling.

Actual wiring took place on 5th Jan 2025, and final testing got over on 20th Jan 2025. They put up a 2 *16 pair FAT boxes inside the ducting for our building. I was finally able to chase up the installation team to get my connection set up yesterday.

Two installation chaps showed up with a new Nokia G-2425-A router and got my old connection migrated to FTTH with old landline number activated. Now the hitch this time around is that my plan profile is set at 24 Mbps instead of 40 Mbps and speed test prove that speeds are indeed locked. Having raised a service request for the low speeds after having done all their diagnostic tests, awaiting the change in profile.

The reason for going through all this exercise with airtel was for the landline usage for my mother who is in her late seventies recovering from an ischemic stroke which makes it difficult to use a mobile phone to contact me. I have now shifted base to my mothers home in light of her medical needs.

Airtel is not what it was like earlier where their was great co-ordination in-between departments and things got done faster over a phone call. The service has gone down considerably with a lot of stuff now being outsourced. My airtel broadband connection was activated in Nov 2008 - first ADSL, then V-Fiber and now proper optical fiber.

Needless to say I am keeping my local cable FTTH connection which has served me well these past few years when airtel connection was on hiatus.

Lets see how things go with the plan speeds tomorrow. Will keep the thread updated.

 

[zerosleeping]

Modem is Nokia G-2425-A manufactured in December 2024.

I have not opted for bridge connection nor static IP as this is not my primary connection. It is being used exclusively for android TV access and a landline for my mom. My only grouse now is getting the plan speeds of 40 Mbps.

 

[zerosleeping]

Airtel chaps called me up about the service request and two fellas turned up at home.

I knew one of the engineers who came home from our previous encounters.

He told me that the issue was with the plan which was locked at 24 Mbps for V-DSL.
I had to call up the airtel hotline and ask for a plan change to 40 Mbps.

A change in profile at the back end, next a modem reboot and we are in business!

A simple task that should have happened automatically on migration took a better part of 2 days.
All's well that ends well Tests conducted on Wi-Fi. No ethernet available to check unless I take
a laptop to the place where the router is installed.

Here are the updated speeds. No 20% excess speeds as others in the forum have explained earlier.
Alas those old days of airtel are not to come.

 

[Deleted member 87056]

If I were in your place I would have been happy with the local FTTH provider for my internet needs. Chasing down Airtel so much just to get bare minimum seems like too much of a hassle to me, I mean they are not providing anything special when it comes it basic internet connectivity. If the local FTTH provider has good uptime and no slowdowns in peak hours then there was absolutely no reason to chase Airtel for internet.


It's Airtel's incompetency that they are unable to upgrade to fiber in your building, it's them who should work actively to provide a FTTH connection and failing to do so must incur monetary loss to them, not the consumer. You think that the letter you submitted at the store holds any value? The only thing which Airtel Store guys do is to sell you a more expensive plan which you absolutely don't need, that's it. They are incapable of resolving any issues whatsoever.

Nothing against you but I feel we as consumers have glorified Airtel as a brand more than what it deserves which has led to it's downfall(Poor CC, just aggressive marketing and blindly expanding across the country) I was in the same boat as you 5-6 years ago when Airtel won't put their fiber lines in my apartment due to multiple reasons(Existing ISP cartel backed by a politician won't let any other ISP enter our society). Back then I didn't realise but I was just a victim of Airtel's aggressive marketing and had the mindset "Airtel hi best hai baaki sab to bekar hai". Now when I look back I feel it was not worth the effort. Airtel did serve me pretty good for a span of 3 years, I can't deny that but there were other ISPs around me which were equally good if not better.

As of Jan 2025, Airtel FTTH is available in every nook and corner of my locality here in Pune. If you compare this with 2020, they were only present in rich societies and availability was very minimal. So all in all, Airtel FTTH is for the masses now because of their rapid expansion through the LCO model hence the decline in service quality.

Wishing your mom a speedy recovery and a good health

 

[zerosleeping]

My primary reason for keeping the airtel connection is the landline and not the internet. Though it bugged me to go in for the rated plan speeds even if the usage is sporadic.

My mom is not getting any younger and is on blood thinners with a cataract in one eye that cannot be operated because of the stroke. This makes communication difficult for her and I am not always available at home throughout the day with no means for her to contact me. My family lives in Mumbai and I am here in Mangalore.

Needless to say the local FTTH connection has been a life saver all this while when airtel was down and I won't be giving it up. My work necessitates a constant internet connection and I have had 2 connections (1 as backup) since 2008 in my moms home. I used to visit alternate months from Mumbai.

My connection here is being directly serviced by airtel and not the LCO model and I am on the postpaid plan - billed monthly right since the inception. Since the landline no is with quite a few relatives and banks asking for a change would be a major hassle.

I do agree with you that the airtel of it's heydays is something that won't come back again. They have become greedy af now.

 

[zerosleeping]

@87056

The other alternative I had at my end was JIO Airfiber (horror of horrors).

Jio FTTH had the same issues as with airtel regarding non availability of poles to get the wiring done. They have stopped expanding their optical fiber network and are concentrating on monetising their 5G network.

A couple of my neighbours' ditched Airtel VDSL last year and switched to JIO Airfiber. Deep Packet Inspection, random site blocks and VPN blocks are causing them issues for WFH, not to mention random downtimes. They have prepaid for a full year and hence cannot shift to another provider. This forum is full of horror stories about JIO airfiber. Airfiber also doesn't offer a landline - my main need.

Atleast airtel has none of JIO's random blocking issues. All VPN's work well. The airtel technical team is more competent I feel, compared to the interaction my neighbours' and relatives have had with JIO.

Airtel has always been shifty and shady - one has to be behind them to get things set up properly. But once set it is good enough. I have had only one serious downtime in the VDSL connection from Nov 2008 to April 2023 and that was due to a copper cable cut during road digging.

My other neighbours' VDSL connection was upgraded today to FTTH and guess what they are still on 24 Mbps!! Looks like a planned strategy to push users to higher speed plans. The shady DNA never changes though.

 

[zerosleeping]

One advantage of the airtel FTTH connection that I have found out today is that I am not put under CGNAT.

I don't if this is the norm for new activations or this is going to be permanent.

I am able to port forwarding on my desktop after putting the router in DMZ. The desktop firewall allows me to open ports as per my requirement. This has allowed me to be connectable to other clients on a private tracker that I use regularly. CGNAT on the local FTTH makes me non connectable unless I use tail-scale or a VPN that allows port forwards.

My local FTTH broadband though stable and offering higher speeds than airtel for cheaper with excellent uptime is on CGNAT IPv4 and no IPv6.

Here is the screenshot of the ipv6 test.

 

[BornArcher8]

All new connections are first in the dynamic ipv4 pool. After some days (usually a week) they are again back to cgnat pool.

 

[Deleted member 87056]

I used Airtel Fiber for over 3 years and was never migrated to CG-NAT

 

[zerosleeping]

@87056 Applya tondat tup sakhar

A minor update.

It's been over a week since the connection was installed/upgraded last Tuesday afternoon. I am still getting a Dynamic IPv4 IP. IPv6 test fails.
However the IP allocation seems random from the south states and not of my geographic location.

The speeds are stable at just under 40MBps though with an initial burst but the ping times vary depending on the IP allocated to me.

So no CG-NAT as of now. Fingers Crossed. Will update if they migrate me in the future.