Hi-speed Connections In Mumbai?

Hi,I just arrived in Mumbai as a French expatriate (and so new to the forum as well, hello all !). Here is my issue: as you may know, France is quite a state-of-the-art country when it comes to broadband speeds (in fact, third in the world after Japan and Korea) and I have been surfing at 24 Mbps for the past 2 years (with unlimited hours and unlimited MB, for about 2400 Rs. a month). Over there, all ISPs propose about the same service, viz. 24 Mbps unlimited, most of the time with triple play, for prices ranging between 1000 and 3000 Rs. a month (and my ex-ISP will be providing 100Mbps by the end of the year, i.e. like a local network).So I am a bit puzzled as to the kind of plans available here. First, I know it will be impossible, as a private customer, to find the kind of speeds I was accustomed to, but above all I am confused with the different plans : night hours, download limits, time limits... It seems hard to find unlimited plans with decent (512k or more) speeds. So that would be great if you could suggest an offer with the following specs:- time unlimited (in terms of hours; it may be restricted to night hours if these hours are ok, e.g. 10 to 8)- volume unlimited (or with reasonnable prices for extra MB, such as 1Re./MB)- speed as high as possible (512k as a very minimum, more likely 1Mb and ideally 2Mb)- available in Mumbai in the Peddar Road / Breach Candy area (Airtel and Hathway are not, already checked)- decent pricing (I have seen an offer that would match all of this, with 4Mpbs, but price is ridiculously high, something like 1 lakh; still I am ready to pay up to 3000 Rs./month if service is good)I have seen some offers from Exatt which seem ok, how is this ISP rated? Other suggestions?Thanks,Tom

Ok dude but if you're seriously addicted to the internet then forget it. I think you would go broke before you can get even 10Mbps speeds with volume + time unlimited plans in Mumbai. The best shot for you is to get Airtel DSL at your place. But they are deploying their network VERY SLOWLY. I've been waiting for it for over a year now. The max you'll get out of them is 256Kbps Unlimited ( Time + Data ) for Rs.999 a month. There is iGate but they are a cable ISP. Very pathetic customer service but great speeds. You can try out Exatt but again, crappy customer service.We've been ranting here about the stupid plans and pathetic service for a very long time now and I guess you should be joining us soon 🙂Hey, I've an idea... As a French citizen may be you could drive sense into these ISPs. Why dont you write a nice article about how broadband is in France versus the pathetic situation that is prevalent in the financial hub of India? 😉 May be someone here can get it published in TOI? And Sushubh might put it up on this website?Best of luck...

QUOTE(Tom FR @ Sep 12 2006, 10:25 AM) [snapback]61932[/snapback]
(Airtel and Hathway are not, already checked)
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Ahh, now you will understand exactly what the personal internet situation is like for most Indians. You must be asking yourself isn't this the country that is making an impression in the west re:IT. So isn't it logical to expect they would have good internet service too.

MTNL might be the only option left, tho bit surprised why Max did not mention it, was under the impression it was as good as Airtel if not better. MTNL is govt. owned so my guess is they will have the lowest latency.

You do not mention what kind of apps you will using ?


Bienvenue en Inde 🙂

QUOTE(blr_p @ Sep 12 2006, 07:41 PM) [snapback]62000[/snapback]
Bienvenue en Inde 🙂
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Thanks for that 😀

Ok, just to reply a bit:

@max: Well, best I have seen around here is 4Mbps and it was clearly note for private customers. Anyway, my first connection in France was "only" 2Mbps so I can do with 512k, as long as it is unlimited, or 1024 / 2048 (limited or not).
Just to mention: we DO have poor client services as well in France. In fact, the two main players there are the historical operator, now named Orange (used to be France Telecom and a governement of France company, now it is 2/3 owned by the public), with great service, great connections, but high prices (2400 Rs. for 24 Mbps actually IS considered as a high price in France !!) and a recent, purely private player named Free, very innovative (it introduced triple play in France) and very low priced (24 Mbps triple play offer at 900 Rs., again unlimited in both time and amount) but with awful client services (connections can drop for several days).
That might indeed be fun to give you some insight as to how it works over there 🙂

@blr_p: I already have had some idea from the corporate side, as our connection at work is only 1Mbps, shared among a dozen persons. You seem to be reading minds, since indeed I could not stop thinking how weird it is that so good a country in BPO and call centers (with value-added services increasing at a good pace) can have such crapy Internet access. Maybe it is just a question of customer basis...
Regarding provided, I have been advised against MTNL by my predecessor (or was it VSNL? I can't remember... any idea ?)
As for apps, there would be mainly Videoconferencing (hence the need for high speed, 512k is a very, very minimum for this), Voice over IP and FTP (I upload a lot of large photos on my blog, hence the need for unlimited amounts).

Thanks for your answers!

Tom thats the basic misconception about India. The corporates have it well off. They have tons of connectivity but the prices are just too high. Reason? Monopoly and cartels amongst the ISPs 🙂And no India is NOT an IT super power. Please circulate this amongst your friends. We are just doing the world's manual labour 😉./me not one of them 🙂