@zerosleeping , no doubt about their good services. I have been their
ADSL customer since 2007 now. I am not that lucky to have one single downtime in these 12 years, but yes downtime frequency is variable. Sometimes, there is one downtime in six months and sometimes there are 1-2 every month, but resolution is as fast as possible. These copper wires are not that robust comparing to fiber wires and hence a thunderstorm or heavy rain with thunderstorm throws my connection for a toss, but not every time. Apart from this, my area is infested with monkeys and they have this particular liking of chewing the Airtel wires. Regarding the resolution, I know most of their technical staff working in the field now. One good example was some 10 years back, when during an anti-encroachment drive, the municipal bulldozer had tore into the box from where my wire was connected in the evening. I called them immediately and also apprised them what had happened and I was told to wait till afternoon next day. However, a guy turned in the dark hours of evening itself and told me that the whole box will be replaced but then he did a temporary repair by connecting some wires so that I do not become without internet for the whole night and morning. This was a real nice courtesy. There are some more examples like this. The longest downtime I had faced was in 2017 when the underground cable was tore off by one JCB machine and it took 3 days to restore it. Good thing was that I was told beforehand about the approximate downtime. Apart from this big one, the maximum downtime I would have faced should not be more than 6-8 hours. Remember that if some problem in wiring or box happens in the evening or night time, it can only be repaired next day.
Some grudges I have with Airtel was that they were the first to introduce FUP and secondly, when my entire colony is 80% fiber done, they are taking huge amount of time to do in my area. I wonder if they will just ignore my area, but recently both CC and linemen have assured me to be done around Diwali or maximum 2 months, which should be November end.
@ajgamer , now ACT is my primary connection with Airtel as backup. There are 3 other neighbors who are now on ACT and none of them have any plans to switch to Jio in future. Their service has been top notch or as good as Airtel. No wonder that they have gained 2000 subscribers in the short period of 6 months in Lucknow. In starting months of my subscription which was marred by heavy rains and thunderstorms, I was having downtimes like twice a month, but the resolution was very fast. From August till date, however, I have just faced single downtime. There have been no issues of slow speed days also which happens sometime on Airtel. Depending on the time of the day, once you raise an issue on their app, you get a call back soon from the technical staff/lineman and if it is off-field problem, you get a call from their office. The ticket is never closed without my consent.
Even I am surprised to see so much negative feedback on ACT, but then there is also a thread as how ACT works differently in different cities. My own take on this is that in this competitive atmosphere with so many ISPs available in all tier 1-2 cities with attractive packages, one cannot simply survive with this type of service. I am observing here with reviews from my friends that for some months now, even the local ISPs here have pulled up their socks and providing good service, who otherwise were below par before.