Broadband in India: Times of India on Fair Usage Policy

MTNL's services are too unreliable to be a viable option

This is complete myth...I am sad to see that that opinion is put purely on basis of MTNL being government company and hence assumed that MTNL unreliable.. the writer has not verified claims or has not weighed positive response to negative response for MTNL service.

This article wud discourage users for going for MTNL, which infact is most reliable and affordable ISP in Mumbai.

Originally Posted by amish

This is complete myth...I am sad to see that that opinion is put purely on basis of MTNL being government company and hence assumed that MTNL unreliable.. the writer has not verified claims or has not weighed positive response to negative response for MTNL service.

This article wud discourage users for going for MTNL, which infact is most reliable and affordable ISP in Mumbai.

Based on my wife, father in law, and several colleagues experiences: we would all beg to differ. I suspect it has a lot to do with your area. Some areas may be good, other areas may be utter crap.

---------- Post added at 08:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:59 AM ----------

Originally Posted by admin

i am also sort of sad for hayai broadband which was not mentioned at all. mathew contributed a lot of stuff to this article.

the reporter promised that he would do some (or one) blog posts on the topic with more details which was not possible to include in this newspaper piece.

I added my comments to the online edition.

Although I reference the document to which we all contributed, I doubt they would have let me provide a link to it.

Well thats what has happened. They contacted few users, who happened to have bad experience OR biased against MTNL.

I think there was poll on this forum.

MTNL had clear upper hand, which means, other ISPs are equally unreliable if not more. Infact poll was for ISPs around whole nation, whereas MTNL still had more vote count (inspite being in just 2 cities)

Homework was not done well before writing off MTNL as unreliable

Originally Posted by amish

Well thats what has happened. They contacted few users, who happened to have bad experience OR biased against MTNL.

I think there was poll on this forum.

MTNL had clear upper hand, which means, other ISPs are equally unreliable if not more. Infact poll was for ISPs around whole nation, whereas MTNL still had more vote count (inspite being in just 2 cities)

Homework was not done well before writing off MTNL as unreliable

Considering that my wife, father in law and work colleagues all live in different parts of the city and are connected to different exchanges, I can say that service is not very good in Dadar W, Dadar E, Mahim and Chembur - even though all of these are just a couple of stations away from Prabhadevi central office.

Who's to say it's not worse further out? Or better? It is, as mentioned, very much a "your mileage may vary" situation. If the majority of exchanges suck and the only part of the city to get good service is Prabhadevi (for example), then that's not really sufficient to say it's a reliable service everywhere to everyone.

The other thing is, not all ISPs are available in all areas, so measurement can't really be consistent - one street can get Airtel whereas another street can't, and the same goes with Tata, Reliance and all the cable ISPs too. MTNL, on the other hand, is available everywhere, and if the quality of service was consistent (as it bloody well should be), then I wouldn't disagree that MTNL is the best value service provider for Mumbai at present, and in your house, it seems that MTNL service is perfectly fine, no issues, in which case, MTNL is the best ISP for you.

Yes, see what my point is... Reliance, Tata, Sify.. they are all there.. there are plenty of bad reviews about them.

Plenty means PLENTY.... but article just says MTNL being completely unreliable... so my point is there is bias. Article gives clear impression in readers mind to NOT to GO for MTNL at all.

Which is wrong.

time to spread this article as wild fire ...

a hearty thnks to sushubh and mathew for thier sincere efforts...

and this is the reason for me making out a move from Airtel to MTNL , being a loyal customer to Airtel for last 5 yrs..... to helll with a speed of 256 kbps.. have researched abt MTNL abt the service.....has got pretty decent nowadays....

Originally Posted by amish

Yes, see what my point is... Reliance, Tata, Sify.. they are all there.. there are plenty of bad reviews about them.

Plenty means PLENTY.... but article just says MTNL being completely unreliable... so my point is there is bias. Article gives clear impression in readers mind to NOT to GO for MTNL at all.

Which is wrong.

The article clearly says that the only ISP to NOT have an FUP is considered by USERS to be unreliable enough to negate that particular benefit. People will go for MTNL regardless - in some areas there is no other choice.

What would you rather: an FUP and reliable service, or no FUP and service which might be down every other day? Some people will choose one, some people will choose the other option. Whatever they consider to be the lesser of two evils.

But I don't disagree with you - all ISPs have their varying reviews, and I expect that we'll have both good and bad reviews (hopefully more good than bad). The difference is: how will the complaints be handled?