Ok. Here is a second hand point of view on MTNL Mumbai IPTV.It was installed in end December 2006 at my sisters place.The quality is comparable to Cable
TV, but every 5 mins or so the picture 'cracks' - like a scratched VCD. It is irritating, but then you get used to it. also every 15 mins or so the picture freezes and within 10 secs it comes back. There are about 125 channels. All Star,
Sony and the Regional channels. No Zee, HBO, ESPN, BBC, CNN as far as I recall. Supposedly they yet have to sign an agreement with Zee for relaying their channels. Get Al Jazeera though (it's good trust me)Ok reasons for opting for IPTV... 1)Cable operator aka robber was charging 3K for installation which was literally string a cable 3 meters to the tele from the building passage. Highway robbery and you are held to ransom.2)The Balcony does not face the desired direction for DTH. Society would not allow to put the Dish on terrace (think because they were trying to throw their weight aroun and also cable operator / thief stays in same building).3)The place where I stay, we have cable TV with CAS. Now the cable guy cut of all the pay channels. When we gave him a list of channels that we wanted, he said pay 320 for all channels. thus no pick and choose. Add to this rental of the box... goes upto 350+. Thieves.4)The Service of MTNL may suck big time but the problems will get resolved at about the same time that it would take 'private' players to do so. No Smile, No thank you. I can live without them if the problem is solved. What about you?Hardware:They replaced the
D-Link modem with a UT Starcom 304R2U
router consists of 4 LAN ports but no USB one.The set top box they had given earlier was a Kreatel which had dimesions similar to a small DVD player. They replaced it with one called 'Amino' which is literally the size of 3 single CD jewel cases stacked one on top of each other. So it is small. And powerful The picture quality apparently improved over the previous one. (Second person account)Cost:1000 for installation. Not yet received the first months bill.Verdict:Out of the clutches of the cable operators.Quality getting there but not yet. It can only get better.Other facts:You get VOD for a few titles have not checked it out but it's great pausing your signal and starting whenever you feel like. Also quality of the VOD is slightly better that rest of the content. Probably as less processing may be required (just guessing). Also the download speed shows as 4 MBps however the net is on a much slower speed. Also necessary that you setup a Bridge connection to connect to the Internet. PPPoE does not work.Additional Info:There is a Wireless LAN at home and the Wifi router has a RJ45 port at the back which is titled WAN. Connected a LAN straight through cable from the port labeled WAN to 1 port of the
ADSL 2+ router. The Router is setup in Bridge mode. Setup the connection in the WiFi config page giving the username and password of the MTNL connection. No
DNS server no Gateway nothing. DHCP is on in the WiFi router. The WiFi router connects and authenticates automatically as soon as it is turned on. Thus no need to give each PC in the LAN IP address of 192.168.X.X. Got WEP turned on though
🙂Any queries you guys may have may take a little time to answer. Please be patient.