Switching from BSNL to Airtel (Chennai)

I've been on BSNL broadband ever since it was launched 7 or 8 years ago. It has been great so far, the speed is as promised. I know the lineman and the exchange is a couple of streets away so the rare problems are resolved pretty quickly. I'm on the 4mbps unlimited plan with a 20GB cap and the limit is proving to be a serious issue. I'm considering switching to one of the Airtel 8mbps plans(80GB/170GB), It looks great on paper, but I notice the trend here being people switching away from airtel. People seem to complain about the FUP a lot, I'm fine with the plan they offer, but do they fully honour it? Does the FUP kick-in exactly after the mark or do they try to screw you and downgrade the connection a few GBs before the limit?Any other issues I must know about? Especially with airtel in Chennai?Thanks.

i was with airtel for about 8 years till aug this year when i shifted home. they were unable to provide me a 4mbps in my locality as their db was saturated with too many subscribers. they gave me a 2mbps line but i rarely got more than 1mbps. i listen to internet radio most of the time and some channels would stutter with airtel. so i moved to bsnl and speed is good except for the fup. i got fupped yesterday and it is frustrating. looking at reliance now.on airtel you need to check feasibility in your area. i was told that you get the 4mbps and 8mbps only if you live within a km or so of their exchange, which was true for my previous address...

i did a long blog post about what you should know when you are applying for an airtel connection...

you might want to go through these:

Airtel SmartBytes is nothing but a scam on their customers
Airtel’s new found love for high speed broadband plans
Things to know when applying for an Airtel Broadband connection

basic things to know:

8mbps plans are not available everywhere.
you deal with beetel for hardware and alcatel lucent for wiring.
fup is painful because of smartbytes. they would randomly redirect you after you have crossed 80% usage.
torrents seems to be no longer throttled so that’s good i guess.
their bandwidth usage checker is likely to record more data than your own local one if you are going to use one.
customer support has gone crap. earlier they used to resolve issues within 4 hours on a working day. nowadays? you would be lucky to get support on next day.

good things?

1. reliability is pretty good for most of us.
2. you should get more than the advertised speeds almost all the time before you hit fup.

No, the FUP won't kick in before you consume the datacap.As for the service, I've been with Airtel for more than 7 years. I'm happy with their service and the connection is 99% stable.There are 2,4,8,16 mbps plans available but, you need to check what speed is feasible at your home. Airtel couldn't give me 8mbps for my connection. So, I'm stuck with 4 mbps. For some locations, even 4 mbps is not feasible.

Yep, do a thorough check.. Otherwise it will be like "aasman se gira khajoor pe latka!"

Thanks for all the replies. The smarbytes redirection is a major downer, I can't have them mucking around with my traffic. From what I understand, there's no way to turn it off.I'm not sure if BSNL has increased the limit, but right after I posted that message, I was back (and continue to be) at 4mbps. I've decided to stick with BSNL for the time being till they upgrade their plans(unlikely) or another competent provider emerges(even more unlikely).

Thanks for all the replies. The smarbytes redirection is a major downer, I can't have them mucking around with my traffic. From what I understand, there's no way to turn it off.

I'm not sure if BSNL has increased the limit, but right after I posted that message, I was back (and continue to be) at 4mbps. I've decided to stick with BSNL for the time being till they upgrade their plans(unlikely) or another competent provider emerges(even more unlikely).

The smartbytes redirection happens only to websites and not to your download traffic. This is my understanding. When i would reach the 80% cap, for a day or two, it would randomly redirect me to a site to buy more bandwidth. But the simple solution was to close that instance of IE or open another private instance of IE or any browser and the nuisance would go away. It would kick in again when you reach the 100% limit, and I would do the same as above. I think this is the extent of pain and nothing more beyond this. I could be wrong though, seeing the way chromaniac talks about this grievance. Maybe there is more to it than I have experienced...

I've been on BSNL broadband ever since it was launched 7 or 8 years ago. It has been great so far, the speed is as promised. I know the lineman and the exchange is a couple of streets away so the rare problems are resolved pretty quickly.

I'm on the 4mbps unlimited plan with a 20GB cap and the limit is proving to be a serious issue. I'm considering switching to one of the Airtel 8mbps plans(80GB/170GB), It looks great on paper, but I notice the trend here being people switching away from airtel.

People seem to complain about the FUP a lot, I'm fine with the plan they offer, but do they fully honour it? Does the FUP kick-in exactly after the mark or do they try to screw you and downgrade the connection a few GBs before the limit?

Any other issues I must know about? Especially with airtel in Chennai?

Thanks.
did u hear about reliance new thunder plans ???????? 1099 4mbps nO fup

The smartbytes redirection happens only to websites and not to your download traffic. This is my understanding. When i would reach the 80% cap, for a day or two, it would randomly redirect me to a site to buy more bandwidth. But the simple solution was to close that instance of IE or open another private instance of IE or any browser and the nuisance would go away. It would kick in again when you reach the 100% limit, and I would do the same as above. I think this is the extent of pain and nothing more beyond this. I could be wrong though, seeing the way chromaniac talks about this grievance. Maybe there is more to it than I have experienced...

Maybe I'm being too picky, but I'll find that incredibly annoying, especially since it's going to be random. As chromaniac mentions in his blogpost, you could be in the middle of a financial transaction when this happens. Googling about this shows that people have lost blog posts, and forum comments, so this clearly happens with both GET and POST requests.

did u hear about reliance new thunder plans ???????? 1099 4mbps nO fup

Thanks, this looks great on paper. I've decided to stick with BSNL for now(I just realized they have a 4mbps/100GB plan for Rs. 1700 in my circle). If I start hitting the cap, this'll be the first alternative on my list.

bsnl has cheaper plans than airtel and less nuisance. if you are in one of the circles where they are offering 100/175GB plans.

stick with BSNL. Period !!

that is what i would suggest. there are basically no advantages in going for airtel. their customer care has gone to hell. they have been checking if they have disconnected my broadband connection since yesterday morning.

I've decided to stick with BSNL for now(I just realized they have a 4mbps/100GB plan for Rs. 1700 in my circle). If I start hitting the cap, this'll be the first alternative on my list.
There is? Show me where you found this plan for Chennai circle?

as mentioned earlier, this plan seems to be available for tamil nadu but not in chennai.

bsnl apparently consider them different circles for their plans.



hyderabad is included andhra pradesh is not.
i assume bangalore is also not included but karnataka is.

bsnl has cheaper plans than airtel and less nuisance. if you are in one of the circles where they are offering 100/175GB plans.
Unfortunately, it's not the case with Chennai circle. It seems to be different from Tamilnadu circle where ULD 2150 offers 175GB @4mbps. In Chennai, it just offers 100GB @1mbps. This is why I'm still sticking with Airtel.

As far as Chennai is concerned, Airtel has the best plans for heavy users. Reliance seems to be a good option in the last few days but it seems to be coming with it's own set of problems.

I posted this message before reading your last message. But like I said Chennai circle is not in TN circle. A few months back, I went to BSNL office and noone seems to have heard about these new plans.