Airtel Xstream fiber expanding to Kottayam

@Sammy v fiber is not true fiber till last mile ,its actually copper cables connections based on vectorization technology common in Europe . It will have it's own limitations .

It's also advantageous users since competition can bring out some best plans for the people using other isps. We can expect above 100mbps plans from other operators also.

Sammy said:

Jio expansion in my area was done around Jan 2019, they literally did a 4-5km stretch on the main road next to my house in 2 nights.

Btw, I’m at my parents apartment in Ekm right now. They have an xstream connection, not seeing the best latency right now. ☹ Lmk if you want me to run any ping tests.

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Report the connection directly to centralized support, and if not resolved, repeat until they find the cause.
I had V-fiber in EKM with a speed of 40Mbps and was top notch with Asianet(200Mbps) & Kerala Vision(100Mbps) Fiber as options and did not go for them for many reasons.

@rtr00t they definitely have the best QOS among asianet keralavision etc. In kerala But they have a major hurdle in front of them ,as their plans have very low fups and much costlier with respect to other ISPs. Most of the kerala users especially the rural area users are the ones who's main use case will be the google services so they are concerned only with higher fups plans than good QOS and routing. Both KV and asianet have higher fups with their starter plans.Airtel will have to come up with some good region specific plans having higher fup if they want gain market share here .

I think free installation could be a game changer. I know they sometimes offer it on long term plans but it's a good possibility for an introductory offer. Railwire/KV charge 4.5k for installation + ONT and asianet charge 2k+ for installation. Also been noticing a lot of people in my area are switching from KV to Asianet FTTH or Jio. The guy who collects the payments in my area said that there have been a decline in customers after lockdown started.

rtr00t said:

Report the connection directly to centralized support, and if not resolved, repeat until they find the cause.

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Yup, I contacted the nodal officer and sent them an email too. They said they will try to help out remotely, if not they will send over a technician but I'll never know when its truly fixed until I'm back there. My parents just use the usual socials + youtube + email which work completely fine. The thing I noticed and mentioned to them was that the first hop itself I was noticing ~40ms latency to the router itself and then second hop is to airtel Chennai which is also ~30-40ms which shouldn't be that high.

Sammy said:

I think free installation could be a game changer. I know they sometimes offer it on long term plans but it's a good possibility for an introductory offer. Railwire/KV charge 4.5k for installation + ONT and asianet charge 2k+ for installation. Also been noticing a lot of people in my area are switching from KV to Asianet FTTH or Jio. The guy who collects the payments in my area said that there have been a decline in customers after lockdown started.

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Yeah thats also can be a method , for procuring new connections, but the major factor here will be the amount of data offered , Most of the user's use case will be data hungry streaming platforms like netflix, Hotstar, etc plus now lots of tv channels are availble in internet all leads to more data, but this wont require very large speeds, so for them having higher fup plans with affordable price will be chosen. I personally prefer 50mbps plans with higher fup rather than a 100 mbps with low fup because my use case is like that. Of course for some people having a good qos and routing will be preferred even if it has less fup.

Sammy said:

I think free installation could be a game changer. I know they sometimes offer it on long term plans but it's a good possibility for an introductory offer. Railwire/KV charge 4.5k for installation + ONT and asianet charge 2k+ for installation. Also been noticing a lot of people in my area are switching from KV to Asianet FTTH or Jio. The guy who collects the payments in my area said that there have been a decline in customers after lockdown started.

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I agree, that's definitely a valid point. Asianet seems to have understood that, and is bundling multiple months of service for a lumpsum payment, which is also a decent model. However, in the case of Kerala Vision / BSNL / RailWire, an entry cost of close to 4k will act as a barrier for most people who may not necessarily need a wired connection and would be happy with 4G wireless connectivity. Not everybody might be willing to spend a significant amount just for installation.

A couple of people I spoke to was okay to get a wired connection but didn't find it worth spending 3-4k just for installation. If the entry cost was lesser they might have definitely opted for it. The issue with BSNL and others is that they are not interested in subsidizing the initial CPE costs and the associated expense to streamline the initial onboarding process. BSNL could procure BSNL branded xPON ONTs in bulk for very low prices and subsidize it for new customers. They should probably look at the long term revenue potential. 🤷‍♂️

Hathway for example, if you pay for 3 months together, there is no installation / CPE or any other charge, you get 3 months of service.

Although I welcome Airtel FTTH in my area (in Kerala) (I even submitted a request), I doubt Airtel would be interested in serving non-city areas where the density is much lesser. Even Asianet isn't interested in my area. 😅

@varkey we do have bsnl ipv6..🤧
Bsnl babu's are finding it tough to pay lco from thier revenue share, usally there would be a delay of 3 to 4 months. (I do know their financial situation, still that can't be justified for such a delay. This delay and uncertainty is one of the main reasons why LCO's stay away from bsnl)
And this bsnl people would in no way give a connection from thier local exchange (at times they do, rarely)

I do believe if they had aggressively advertised it, and provided services directly with proper pamphlets and they would have got much larger customer base, it's just their employees attitude that they got a Govt job... And don't give two shit abt what happens to company. 😁As simple as that.

As told by a divisional engineer here in palakkad-bsnl's biggest enemy is not the airtel or Jio or even the Govt that goes against it in every step of progress; rather its the rotten bueracracy and dirty politics that happens inside. This was highly evident in my experience of one month where routing, latency and speed was far worse than adsl connection. I was lucky that I could press them with people from above which would never happen in a situation like airtel! They went around for 18 days complain there was a problem with lco equipment, when finally they were convinced that wasn't the case, they fixed it in 4 days😁(to this day they don't what caused it). All they did was set every connection from for my LCO from scratch twice. 😑

Tldr; bsnl could have been the best ftth player in kerala, but they won't, due to their attitude towards their customers.

@Ameen Yeah even if they wanted to improve, they will never reach the type of QOS and routing airtel has. For eg. There is site where I was having online tests with bsnl ftth connection the site takes forever to load ,mostly resulting in request timeouts , when I used airtel 4g , and the site load instantly without hiccups .Earlier I thought it was due to poorly development of website ,but then I found its mainly due to bsnl pathetic routing rather than site fault

The problem with international routing with bsnl can be understood with knowing a little bit of history.
Usually networks of BSNL'S size should have a decent global network with stakes in submarine cables and landing station.
But BSNL doesn't have such infra and gets upstream from as much as 9 upstream providers, which is very very inefficient for a huge network like BSNL.
The international cables, landing stations etc were handled by Vsnl which is now tata communications.
So govt did not want to compete with itself then so did not invest in infrastructure through BSNL.
After 2006, when tata took over govt didn't care enough to make arrangements for BSNL at that time these useless Dhayanidhi maran and A.raja of the DMK b***rds were holding the telecom portfolio and were busy in thier own scams like Private Telephone exchange scam and 2G scam.
So when BSNL was profitable they should have built their global infrastructure as well as start to peer with content providers within the country aggressively.But they did not do that and even they don't announce all thier prefixes at Nixi and they don't go for optimal solution but go for a solution that works for now and then leave it that.
My suggestions to fix BSNL,
1. Build global network like Jio did, but this is not possible due to current financials but must be done once BSNL becomes profitable.
2. Agressive domestic peering and ensure that no traffic inside India should be served through from outside the country due to routing errors.
3. Use the existing ports of IX like Extreme Ix and Nixi properly, as they have ports in every NIXI and Mumbai extreme IX but not using it full potential as they're not announcing all their routes at these locations. So most traffic still goes through their upstream providers.
4. Transit providers should be used only for international traffic, domestic traffic should not be served through upstream providers like TATA or airtel.

@rtr00t any update in Kottayam? They have laid fiber infront of my house in Thrissur just a few days ago. Got a call today saying that they can provide me service after a sales team visit.

@Sammy I have just visited the airtel store in kottayam to know the status of the xstream fiber, and the representatives told me that they got an update from the higher end airtel team that, by the end of april and start of may , airtel fiber will be launching in kottayam. They have no other info available, like coverage ,lco or direct model etc. They said customers can either book by coming to the store or just 198 to create an expression of interest after its launched, they have also said many customers are also asking for it.

@Lucifer96 They started their rollout here in Thrissur just before the lockdowns. I see it’s also active in Kollam. Still no idea if it’s LCO or direct. Any word from Kottayam?

@Sammy new cities are LCO.

Sammy said:

@Lucifer96 They started their rollout here in Thrissur just before the lockdowns. I see it’s also active in Kollam. Still no idea if it’s LCO or direct. Any word from Kottayam?

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Its not direct, they are expanding through the mode of exclusive local franchises in each area. Only upto 300 mbps plans are there, and its prepaid mode only. Here also they have started their operations in thiruvalla and changancherry nearby towns of kottayam , it has not reached kottayam city yet maybe lockdown and all will delay the rollout