Airtel Broadband pathetic connection ADSL/V-Fiber 2 years of pain

Dear all

I have been using Airtel broadband for close to 10 years now and till 2 years ago everything was fine and good. Over the last 2 years the telephone line has been so poor, extreme disturbance (you basically hear the humming noise, like what you would hear if you were close to a high voltage transformer) and I' have been reporting this to 121 over and over again and there has been no fix so far, 2 years and counting! They are prompt to send someone to fix it, the person does a quick fix and goes and this seems to be okay for a while and then the problem is back again. After repeated complaints I contacted the Nodal office, emailed them the ping stats etc. still no solution. The same person has been coming over the last 2 years to fix this disturbance on the line and finally he agreed that the underground cable is faulty and hence the disturbance. I' have been paying 1500 odd rs for such a pathetic connection.

Due to the disturbance on the line, the broadband is also so slow. Ping stat is so bad, ping test to google.co.in used to give a latency of 400-600 ms and it is not just the latency, the packet loss is also so high ~15-20%. About 2 days back they changed the connection to my house to a different distribution point(another pole) and then this humming sound went away but still internet was bad. I have also been asking repeatedly for this Vectoring DSL(which Airtel claims with a false name of V-Fiber), I got the upgrade today with the D-Link modem(insisted on a D-Link after reading complaints on this forum 🙂). They have upgraded the line but the line is so unstable, latency keeps varying, packet loss is still high.

My neighbor who lives right beside my compound is getting 40 mbps with this VDSL, whereas I'm getting only 8 mbps due to my connection being from different distribution point. I' have argued with them that this is not acceptable to me and they mentioned they will do another feasibility check. However, this V-FIBER seems to be very erratic and unstable, my neighbor is also facing the same issue.

When will these guys upgrade their network to support Fiber to home. There does not seem to be enough competition in Bangalore still.

I'm attaching my line stats below(link below): I would like some experts opinion on this. Upon reading on the internet the attenuation seems to be high and the SNR seems to be low, but Airtel will probably tell this is good enough.
Capture

Well, you can't directly link the stability and performance of the connection with the SNR and Attenuation. Though, they might be the first hand indicators but lot of other technical factors are at play. I have seen rock solid VDSL stable connections running at 40mbps even at 10dbm(SNR) and attenuation (25-30dbm). Your connection also seems to have very less FEC and UAS errors which are an indicator of a healthy connection. Technically, if you're out of the set loop length for 40mbps(<550m), they would right away ask you for a downgrade. Ask the Airtel guy to try the VR777 modem aswell. Airtel would only replace the underground copper cables if there is enough business from the distribution point from where you are connected. Don't have high hopes as they aren't gonna replace this copper shit anytime soon.

I have asked them to provide me a connection from another distribution point, let's see what happens. I definitely think this copper line is >550m from the DSLAM. Should be close to 800-900 mts.

I don't think you are feasible for the 40 MBPS. Your SNR would drop when your line will sync with 45000 Rate (Downstream).

Rest, I would tag @Karan who might help you further with it. 🙂

If even after changing the modem and wiring the connection is unstable, that leaves just the port on the Remote Terminal. It may be the issue. Further, it could be the particular RT you are on is overloaded, causing the spike. If you can get them to change it to a one located closer, that would be good. As for the current stats, there isn't much room for any higher speeds without further affecting stability, in any case, knowing airtel, they will not do it. The distance in your case taking into account the attenuation and current sync rate, is about 2 Km.

the underground cable is faulty and hence the disturbance.....

Click to expand...

I had same problem (location HSR Bangalore) and after more than six months I decided to disconnect Airtel and go for TTN connection provided by the local cable tv guy (very prompt service...I was connected in couple of hours after calling them) Then AirTel called me and requested me to give them 15 days time to rectify the problem, and offered not to bill me for the fifteen days so I agreed. Soon another technician came and drew a line from the back street, and switched the connections at their end. Everything worked fine again.

@genie for some months only. Airtel is on the path of loosing broadband business soon if they don't upgrade truly not Vfiber which is intact a cheaper fix to be the part of today's broadband.

@Karan , they changed the RSU unit. Here is how the saga goes on for that :
The installed the VDSL modem+router and said the upgrade is done, I checked the line statistics it still said max is 9000kbps. I called customer care/appellate and told them you promised 40 mbps and where is that, the standard reply which I have been getting for ages : Sir 8 mbps is the max available in your area we can't do anything. My reply was my neighbor is getting 40 mbps and many others are getting 40 mbps, why can't you offer me the same? Airtel : We will do a feasibility check again ... It will take 48-72 hrs...

Then on Saturday, they started changing the RSU and they hit trouble. I had reported disturbance in the line even after upgrade to VDSL and he acknowledged the same and said he would fix. The trouble started here again. The phone and broadband went bust and the phone was just beeping, no dialtone. I wasn't informed that there was going to be downtime. Repeated calls to customer service, everyone asking the same question, number, name, the problem... extremely annoying trying to explain the situation over 40 times from Saturday to Tuesday. I was first told they would fix it by 9:30 AM on Saturday, then it was end of Saturday, then Sunday morning, Sunday night and then they said Monday is christmas, so it will be fixed by Tuesday first half... Dragged on, called again and finally they sent someone to have it fixed by 4 PM on Tuesday afternoon. It was fixed and the internet and telephone was working again, however the still at 8 MBPS despite the router line stats showing supported speed of 45000 kbps.

It continues.... Called again, asked why the plan is not changed, they said they still see 8 MBPS max that they can offer, back to square one. I told them I can see the line stats shows that it can support 45000kbps, so upgrade me from the backend. I'm told they will do a feasibility check again and then update me again. Finally by Wednesday afternoon I get 40 mbps. All this has caused so much agony, repeated calls, waste of my time, having to explain the same thing over and over again to different people.

Part two :
I went through my bill and I saw charges for services which I had not asked for at all:
1. Online Desktop Extra Storage Rental Pack - 99.00
2. Airtel PC Secure 1 PULSES - 85.00
3. Hello Tune-Monthly Subscription 9984 1 - 30.00

Total SCAM of 214.00 INR, which is blatantly swindling money from customers. This is the first time I went through my bill throroughly and I found these. Once again, I saw some posts about this PC Secure on this forum, which made be go check my bill.
They have been doing this for years together, and how are they still getting away with this? How can they just subscribe to things which you have not asked for? Airtel is ripping off customers!!

Lastly, I have ACT Fibernet in my area, where they are providing Fiber to home(~ almost). Still thinking if I should go to them or not, after seeing Airtel services and scams. They will definitely lose customers if they don't upgrade people to fiber optic lines, still many people don't know about fiber optic and it's advantages, when people become more aware then I expect things will change fast.. but still a long way to go.

Now, that was a very very long post!!!

Airtel is going to? They are already loosing haha.

Airtel's V-Fiber is a fail and multiple engineers of their have confessed to me that don't upgrade to V-Fiber (VSDL) if you are still on ADSL.

You shouldn't have upgraded. Instead, have ACT Fiber as secondary broadband.

Get Airtel's cheapest plan for back-up. 😉

Let the Jio come in broadband publicly, you will see Airtel will start moving their infra to FIFTH or something.. But V-Fiber will make them loose many customers.

Customers living under 100 meters are only going to be happy with V-Fiber.

V-Fiber is very much prone to noise as compared to ADSL. So there is a lot of drop in line as compared to ADSL.

Secondly, If they continue to use V-Fiber. Data consumption is on the verge of rising.

More data traveling means more line-usage causing loads of drops.

The V-Fiber saga get's worse : Severe packet loss please see the attached image for ping stats. Airtel broadband is miserable, miserable is an understatement.

Source

i am glad i did not upgrade to vfiber. though i am not even using the broadband aspect of my current airtel plan.

V-Fiber is driving me crazy......every time I switch on my computer I have to wait couple of minutes......afterwards it will be ok....if I switch of the computer then again it happens

Speed seems to have improved though....I am supposed to be allocated 24mbps and I am getting 28 to 30

airtel_bb_bengaluru said:

I went through my bill and I saw charges for services which I had not asked for at all:
1. Online Desktop Extra Storage Rental Pack - 99.00
2. Airtel PC Secure 1 PULSES - 85.00
3. Hello Tune-Monthly Subscription 9984 1 - 30.00

Total SCAM of 214.00 INR, which is blatantly swindling money from customers. This is the first time I went through my bill throroughly and I found these. Once again, I saw some posts about this PC Secure on this forum, which made be go check my bill.
They have been doing this for years together, and how are they still getting away with this? How can they just subscribe to things which you have not asked for? Airtel is ripping off customers!!

Now, that was a very very long post!!!

Click to expand...

Yeah, even when I was on DSL back about 2012 after moving to a new location, they added the stupid anti-virus and signed me up for e-bill without my asking. It took a good 4 months before I found out they were pocketing the extra Rs. 100 +tax without even informing me that they had. When I called in, they had the cheek to tell me "it was requested for on the order for service you had placed". They did refund it after a threat to cancel. This time when I got FTTH, I told the guy who came specifically NOT to add any extra service. I even had his write it by hand on the order form. When they installed the connection, the guy does a courtesy call to airtel to make sure that I have working internet, even then I doubly confirmed with them there was no hanky panky going on, which thankfully they did not, only because I was more aware.

airtel_bb_bengaluru said:

The V-Fiber saga get's worse : Severe packet loss please see the attached image for ping stats. Airtel broadband is miserable, miserable is an understatement.

Click to expand...

Hmmm.. seeing this I decided to check on my end...

Ping statistics for 172.217.160.227 (google.co.in):
Packets: Sent = 29, Received = 16, Lost = 13 (44% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 75ms, Maximum = 79ms, Average = 76ms

Though the actual browsing is unaffected for me.

genie said:

V-Fiber is driving me crazy......every time I switch on my computer I have to wait couple of minutes......afterwards it will be ok....if I switch of the computer then again it happens

Click to expand...

That is the inherent problem with VDSL and its extra long time to sync. Pushing all that bandwidth through old and defunct copper.

Sushubh said:

i am glad i did not upgrade to vfiber. though i am not even using the broadband aspect of my current airtel plan.

Click to expand...

I had a better connection on just the ADSL though just at 8 mbps, but even there my line had tremendous disturbance so I had a poor broadband in the end. V-Fiber seems to be a downgrade rather than an upgrade.

genie said:

V-Fiber is driving me crazy......every time I switch on my computer I have to wait couple of minutes......afterwards it will be ok....if I switch of the computer then again it happens

Speed seems to have improved though....I am supposed to be allocated 24mbps and I am getting 28 to 30

Click to expand...

It's driving me nuts as well, the speed does not matter when you have such high latency and packet loss, I guess!

@Karan , I saw the same with my post paid telephone as well, random charges MCM and MCA 30 rs for those dubious spam ads, which you might have clicked by mistake. I wonder how these guys have the balls to rip customers off like this. So many people would be paying this money without their knowledge.

Others , can you post your ping statistics to google.co.in , I'm curious if others are also packet loss.