MTNL Delhi Link not opening - getting stuck at MTNL I.P

[Woke]

Yeah, so I had already edited my hosts file to block MTNL Phozeca prior to this, by adding 127.0.0.1 mtnl.phozeca.com to my hosts file.
That had taken care of the problem at that time and I suppose that's the reason these links don't work, they just open a blank page.

What's strange is that it only opens 203.94.248.63:3000/noti the first time I click on the link. When I go back and click again the proper link opens.

The tips mentioned here are great. I've installed the HTTPS Extension on Chrome, and will try the ones mentioned by caffeinator.

So am I to believe the best case is where the ad gets blocked and it opens that blank Noti Manager page? Can nothing be done to ensure that it goes straight to the actual site in the case of non HTTPS sites?

Edited to mention that I hadn't seen this happening on Firefox, but I was mistaken, it just happened on FF too.

 

[Woke]

sadly they exploit you in a whole entire different way.

Shed some more light on this please. I'm planning to switch to Airtel once it's available in my locality.

 

[Karan]

Airtel's issue is they are what I would call a "fence sitter", they wait for competition and react to it, they are almost always the more expensive option with the lowest FUPs on offer. Airtel's USP is reliability and speed vis-a-vis the plan you opted for, the rest they are just about average compared to other ISPs. The other thing that always sucked with airtel is when they update/change their plans, it is upto you to call them and have it changed, if you don't they will continue to charge you the same old rates for the outdated plan.

 

[demonicult]

Shed some more light on this please. I'm planning to switch to Airtel once it's available in my locality.

Idk what OP is talking about but fair warning Airtel kinda does a similar MTNL ad injection but much worse.
Also I find their plans just average, their service hasn't been top notch at least in my experience.

 

[Sushubh]

mmm. what kind of ad injection does airtel does? i remember reading about some javascript injection on their mobile networks. but i have not heard much about it on broadband. the redirections to smartbytes page also stopped i believe a while ago?

 

[demonicult]

The same javascript code injection was on broadband. They used to serve the Wynk(?) music app ads on blocked websites.
Have they really stopped? I see Airtel doing shady javascript code injections related news popping every few months. Makes me quite skeptical to choose them just to be safe.
They were also the ones running "....you will face 3 year jail time for accessing blocked website.." message along with the regular "This site has been blocked ......." warning.

 

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[Karan]

I have not seen any ad injections done by airtel, they used to like Sushubh mentioned redirect to the smartbytes page, now they just spam your RMN and email with messages regarding your data usage instead. They do still however block quite a few websites, mostly p2p and imagehosts at the claimed direction of DoT.

 

[Sushubh]

yup. lot more domains are blocked on airtel than on excitel or abs. painful tbh as they also block access on https making it painful to even access magnet links.

 

[Karan]

The https earlier used to also be blocked, but since the last week or two they have been opening.

 

[Woke]

That's a damn shame guys. It's sad that our money isn't enough for them. I guess money is never enough for anyone.

I never knew about Excitel, I'm going to call them up tomorrow to check if they cover my area. Their coverage map was a bit confusing, with areas around me were shown as covered but not specifically my neighborhood. Knowing my luck they're probably not available. :cryingface:

 

[demonicult]

@Woke

That's a damn shame guys. It's sad that our money isn't enough for them. I guess money is never enough for anyone.

Majority of us (Indians) want everything for cheapest possible price. This makes it really difficult for businesses to run premium services are premium rates as those numbers of premium users are really low.

Most 'good' internet users in India are paying very low price for oversold bandwidth plans created by cable guys which are perceived as 'high speed' plans

 

[Woke]

@demonicult, I don't quite understand this. I thought our bandwidth is abysmal vis a vis the rest of the world? And I never thought we're getting a good deal on high speed internet. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I do want everything for the cheapest possible price, a reason I deprave myself of all the imported stuff I crave. 😛 But isn't that the reason why the whole world has outsourced to China, to get things at the cheapest possible price, whether they be businesses or consumers? Anyway, I digress, what is this oversold bandwidth that you're referring to? I'm not quite sure I understand.

 

[demonicult]

@Woke
Don't get confused, I never said 'we' are getting good plans as MTNL/BSNL subscribers, rather we get stable, promised and kind of dedicated speeds on our plans. What I mean is if we are getting 2mbps on Day1 we still are getting 2mbps on Day30 and all days between it all the time.
Most other ISPs fail to provide that.

/big rant starts here
When I said us Indians, I meant the general consensus. As most are getting 'good' deals on their internet via cable guys.
How is 10-20mbps with no FUP for ₹1000/month isn't good?
These cable guys oversell bandwidth by selling such plans which are essentially bulk speeds chopped in for every user which makes them as slow as 2-5mbps at high congestion time. Which is still okay speed and that is why most don't complain. What cable guys do is they buy a line of lets say 100mbps and plan to sell it to 10 guys for 10mbps each but end up overselling it to 12-15 guys. They can get away with this is because out of the 12-15 guys only 2-3 are really using it 24x7 or more than 6-8hrs a day to know that their speed isn't 10mbps all the time as promised. Some are working class so all they need is good internet when they are home .Some are old/busy people who don't care about what speed they get but rather want uninterrupted YouTube streaming with no data cap. This makes 70-80% of the 12-15 guys happy.

So that makes Internet kinda cheap to Indians as compared to rest of the world. Our bandwidth is abysmal as compared to rest of the world mainly because we are near the top of skyscraper while the bottom majority is still poor or living in villages or low connectivity or still on mobile internet or lack of ISP in general. This brings our average so low that it is shameful.

And there are two definitions of cheap when it comes to outsourcing manufacturing to China.
One is the 'cheap' where the product itself is low quality, knockoff of the original and so its at low cost;
Other 'cheap' is where their manufacturing backbone is good and so streamlined that they can afford to make high quality products at lowest possible price.

What I am referring 'cheap' is our Indian mentality of low cost as much as possible at a point where it is practically not possible. If it costs ₹1000 for the ISP to provide us 20mbps most people want it for ₹800 which isn't possible at all but we still do want it and when this is fulfilled by someone by shady means they think it is really possible and rest are just expensive. Our cable guys do the same by overselling their bandwidth with some compromises which most say is okay.

Take Jio for instance, for most times Jio speeds are terrible only non-congestion time the speeds are good. But since they provide at such cheap cost, most are 'okay' with it and don't complain.

When you pay a premium for premium services you should expect 100% of what is promised but since we(Indians) like to pay 1/4th of the premium cost we are okay with not getting 100% of what is promised.

/rant over

Also we are quite fortunate that we aren't forced to buy a cable package just to have good internet as what happens in US, which makes their internet costs really high.

 

[Woke]

Just wanted to update the only way I was able to make sure websites would open was by removing phozeca from the hosts file, and letting every non HTTPs request redirect through that damn I.P. I had no other choice. The ISP wins this one.

 

[Woke]

@demonicult, sorry I never got around to replying to your "rant". 🙂

I pretty much agree with a lot of what you're saying. I know, keeping the bigger picture in mind, that there is a lot to be grateful for. But when you have several things to do on a daily basis, you get stuck thinking about your own little problems.

I will gladly pay more for a rock solid service. But it's like a cat and mouse game. Until you don't prove your worth as service provider, I'm going to pay you as little as possible. And on the flip side it's, until you don't start paying more I can't offer you a good service.

But it's the business that has to take a risk and bet on the fact that enough people will pay for quality. Like Amazon did, offering exemplary service from the get go. Or take a homemade brand like Big Basket, although their quality does take a hit from time to time their no questions asked return policy ensures that customers always walk away happy. I will gladly pay a little more to buy through these vendors. Of course, whether they're actually making money or not is something I can't comment on. :biggrin: