why are people still using bsnl fiber over their local lco instead of other isp ?

I live in a village and the only internet i had for 3 years is the bsnl adsl with 2mbps unlimited,i have been told that the signal is too weak to use the 4mbps plan anyways the 4mbps plan is useless because of the low fup limit which would put me back in 2mbps unlimited all the time.

For these 3 years there has been a lot of disconnection and line issues, the worst being the adsl syncing at very low speeds because of some noise on the line. and many times lines just shorting or being cut as the majority of the run is on the ground (yes on the surface and not below ground)

Recently,perhaps much later than i care to admit i realized that the local cable operator started offering FFTH with Kerala vision and Bsnl,
they have been citing delays for two weeks as they can't source the cable for pulling fiber because of covid19 shortages, and haven't even gotten back to me uptill now.
I have however given my disconnection notice for the adsl line, the woman at the exchange kept telling me how kerala vision was crap and i should try the bsnl ftth plans and sent me over their ftth plans through the same lco,she seems stupid as she keeps saying adsl has faster speed,i have attached below the bsnl ftth plans they are offering by the same lco




After seeing these plans i have no idea why anyone would choose BSNL over Kerala vision as the plan i opted for with kerala vision is 20mbps "unlimited" with cable for 599 rs after tax , this is a no brainer compared to bsnl plans
and i have no idea why i see many people in the forum from kerala state continuing to use bsnl plans when they are this bad

i do understand that kerala vision is using cg-nat and also the entire network will be congested most of the times and perhaps even bad routing, and also i never understood the "unlimited" marketing and full expect them to rate limit beyond a certain bandwidth

i guess what i really wanted to know is why people choose bsnl in the first place

We choose bsnl ftth because there is no other option in our area.

I think this has been asked before too 😅

BSNL is one of the few wired ISPs that offer IPv6 (in Kerala atleast).

I think BSNL FTTH is better than most local ISPs, I’m not sure about Kerala Vision though

@PawanKumar @JB700 @vishalrao

for the same price as kerala vision 599 unlimited after tax and cable included, I can get the bsnl 594 rs plan with 20mbps and 200gb limit.

the 749 and 868 rs plan with 4 and 5GB a day fup plan are just brain numbing to even look at let alone comprehend why they even exist and i don't understand why anyone would opt for them

Still Tier-1 isp will always be better in terms of bandwidth availability than Tier-2 or 3. For me bsnl ftth has been really good, consistent speeds and latency. The only major problem for me is my lco other than that bsnl officials are really helpful here.

Kerala Vision is utter garbage from what I read here, they are only providing 20Mbit connections right now to new users because they dont have enough capacity. Existing users are having slow speeds as well.

They have way too many users for the network they have.

It's always the lack of availability. Nobody would opt for BSNL if they are given the choice. Honestly, Jio, Airtel, Tata Sky or any other ISPs should expand their area quickly rather than focusing on these OTT deals. Jio's 399 plan, I can bet you a huge amount of people will gladly opt for this if it was available.

BSNL needs to
1. Revise plans and give 3TB FUP like competition.
2. Give option of 300Mbps at least
3. Stop ad injection.

QoS of BSNL FTTH has been really good for me. Pings are at par or better than Jio fiber in almost all the servers that I tested. They give public IPv4. They can give stiff competition to everyone if they wake up.

I have BSNL, Kerala Vision and DWAN available in my area (through the same LCO), and I'd choose BSNL any day over Kerala Vision. I had shared my initial experience in Kerala Vision Broadband FTTH - User Experience | Kerala Vision, however that was during the peak lockdown surge in traffic and things have definitely improved now.
Kerala Vision is out of bandwidth in many areas and when I checked with the LCO for a new connection for a relative, was told they are no longer providing new connections due to capacity shortage. (Might vary as per the area)

All the issues that you have faced with BSNL ADSL if you look at it, are all last mile problems and not really with actual internet service. That would be resolved over FTTH.

Kerala Vision might appear cheap on paper, but at least during peak hours they are definitely throttling users.

Sure, if I had other options in my area, I'd have definitely given a try, but out of the three, BSNL is any day better. You get public IPv4 IP address, unlimited and uncapped traffic over IPv6 (I know it's temporary but until then the monthly data cap doesn't really matter to me).
Since both Kerala Vision and BSNL are available with the LCO, try both and then decide. If KV performance and features are good enough for your use cases, go ahead with it.

@anubhav11
do you mind saying which plan you are using ?

@JB700
i am worried about this and will report back my finding if they ever get to pulling the fiber cable this year, but i would hate going back to bsnl through an LCO if this will be the case and pay cable separately to Keralavision

@riju
Excatly i would be so happy with jio and not having to deal with these idiotic LCO, they have the worst customer service, been over 2 weeks calling them and its all delays with no followup,I don't understand how they intend to stay in business with no regard for customer service and they even resorted to dodging my phone calls now
but this is the reality of village and remote location where Jio and Airtel won't enter,Bsnl has already give up and has moved completely to the lco managing the last mile and will not be making their access network for Fiber,So the norm is dealing with LCO who have pathetic customer support to connect with Bsnl or keralavision network

@PawanKumar
I have spoken with the Bsnl Jto of my area, he said they are moving to shutdown all the dslam and copper circuit and move to the LCO managing the access network, even if they implement everything you have said we still have to deal with the "LCO experience" which from what i have seen is pathetic

BSNL had to opportunity to standardise and come up with a complete solution with consistent CPE devices, automation around deployment and activation and then let the LCO manage the last mile cabling and network. They could have become a complete broadband technology provider along with taking care of the internet backbone and billing.
But right now there is no consistency on the LCO side, he uses whatever CPE devices he gets cheap, charges whatever he wants for installation, no automation around activation and configuration. All this end of the day spoils the name of BSNL and the service would heavily depend on how good the LCO is. 🤷‍♂️

because of this LCO thing, the experience of getting a connection, complaining in case of issues, general interaction feels like we're dealing with a cheap local ISP. that is a big drawback of BSNL. like @varkey said, it would be better if things could be automated and standardised across the country. currently LCOs are looting with massive installation charges which touch 7-8k even 10k for some. in my city even airtel is providing through LCOs but ONTs, OLTs are provided and configured by airtel, LCO just manages cables.

@varkey
The unlimited ipv6 traffic is a shocker for me, sounds like a glitch on their rate limiting control not being set on ipv6 traffic, do you mind also saying which plan you are using with the price after tax?
I remember when they had a similar glitch on port 53 traffic to avoid leaky bucket congestion on dns traffic and hence any tunnel on port 53 went unmetered, i believe this was resolved later

i think i still have the option to change as its still too early at this point as i haven't even been asked for any identity for signing up for kerala vision yet

thanks for all the opinion guys

@Massivesiege Yeah, their accounting software is presently not tracking any IPv6 traffic, so your usage or plan speed cap doesn't apply. 😅 You'd get whatever speeds the LCO/BSNL is capable of providing in your area. I think I've seen around 300-500 Mbps mostly, although it varies depending on the overall traffic levels etc. I've heard of users in other areas getting even very close to 1 Gbps. 😅

I'm on the Superstar 300 plan which is 779 Rs plus 19% tax ~ Rs 927.

Regarding KV activation, it's pretty quick, I just had to share photo and Id/addres proof and within 1-2 hours the LCO activated it. Probably would do once the cabling is done. BSNL activation might take longer though (1-2 days), so if you wanna try both, can have that processed first.