Hi guys,
I've signed up on this forum to post my impressions of BSNL FTTH. I stay in South Bangalore (outskirts) and opted for a BSNL FTTH connection as there are not many major players for high speed broadband near my society. Let me tell you my trials and tribulations thus far.
Made a call to BSNL customer care to find out feasibility of FTTH in my address. Cust care booked a docket number and said I would get a confirmation call.
A day later, I get a confirmation call to verify my mobile (dunno why this is even needed in the first place) and was told a technical person would call me to discuss on the feasibility. A few hours later someone calls to check whether I am interested in taking a connection (of course!) and says they will get back to me. I said all I wanted to know was the bloody feasibility and the lady said to enquire with my neighbor. I got really pissed off and gave her a sound advice to be a bit more professional next time.
Frustrated, I remembered similar set of events that occurred while I took the BSNL ADSL connection about 13 years ago and when I took the 3G datacard thingy about 8 years ago. While I wouldn't want to delve deep about those, I learnt it the hard way that for getting things done with BSNL, you need to establish direct contacts with senior staff starting from the JTO and all the way till the GM for your circle. Having remembered this, I called up the JTO after searching for his details in the Bangalore Telecom District website and he said that my society already has a few FTTH connections and gave me the number of the LCO (Laxmo Technologies) who will be collecting the application and giving the connection.
I readied the form and required docs along with a cheque for 1277 (as deposit for the new 100Mbps plan) but the LCO guy never came to pick them up. Only after repeated calls, did a guy take the form. In about a day or two, I was assigned my account number for the connection. I was relieved that I would finally get decent internet to get work done but till date the LCO hasn't bothered to install the connection. Every time he would say that he's coming in the next hour but fails to turn up. It's been about 2 weeks now. His staff are equally lazy and totally unprofessional. Not able to take this anymore, I sent off a note to CMD BSNL and BSNL Karnataka on Twitter blasting them for their choice of the LCO. I then spoke to the GM and JTO and gave them a sounding for wasting my time and energy in what should be a fairly automated process. Finally, the JTO relented that the LCO is acting up and they are looking to replace the LCO with someone more reliable and trustworthy. He asked me to somehow manage till they finalize the new LCO.
But I cannot wait for their mistake so I was looking for other options and took Netfi who is a local broadband provider. I have heard horror stories from previous customers regarding Netfi but someone assured me that ever since they switched to fiber, things have been pretty smooth. So I opted to take the 100Mbps plan (300 GB FUP) for 1299+tax and another 1500 for installation. It's not the greatest plan in Bangalore but I must say I have been impressed so far. Speeds are as promised and so far haven't noticed any downtime. Here's the Speedtest result. Averaging gives about 95 Mbps downloads and 85 Mbps uploads
Source
The gist of the matter is, if you are going for BSNL, do some background research on the LCO or be prepared to lose significant amounts of time for nothing. Like others, I can't wait to see what Jio would be bringing to the table but I think it will take some time to reach my area. Till then, I hope Netfi can sustain my needs.
I've signed up on this forum to post my impressions of BSNL FTTH. I stay in South Bangalore (outskirts) and opted for a BSNL FTTH connection as there are not many major players for high speed broadband near my society. Let me tell you my trials and tribulations thus far.
Made a call to BSNL customer care to find out feasibility of FTTH in my address. Cust care booked a docket number and said I would get a confirmation call.
A day later, I get a confirmation call to verify my mobile (dunno why this is even needed in the first place) and was told a technical person would call me to discuss on the feasibility. A few hours later someone calls to check whether I am interested in taking a connection (of course!) and says they will get back to me. I said all I wanted to know was the bloody feasibility and the lady said to enquire with my neighbor. I got really pissed off and gave her a sound advice to be a bit more professional next time.
Frustrated, I remembered similar set of events that occurred while I took the BSNL ADSL connection about 13 years ago and when I took the 3G datacard thingy about 8 years ago. While I wouldn't want to delve deep about those, I learnt it the hard way that for getting things done with BSNL, you need to establish direct contacts with senior staff starting from the JTO and all the way till the GM for your circle. Having remembered this, I called up the JTO after searching for his details in the Bangalore Telecom District website and he said that my society already has a few FTTH connections and gave me the number of the LCO (Laxmo Technologies) who will be collecting the application and giving the connection.
I readied the form and required docs along with a cheque for 1277 (as deposit for the new 100Mbps plan) but the LCO guy never came to pick them up. Only after repeated calls, did a guy take the form. In about a day or two, I was assigned my account number for the connection. I was relieved that I would finally get decent internet to get work done but till date the LCO hasn't bothered to install the connection. Every time he would say that he's coming in the next hour but fails to turn up. It's been about 2 weeks now. His staff are equally lazy and totally unprofessional. Not able to take this anymore, I sent off a note to CMD BSNL and BSNL Karnataka on Twitter blasting them for their choice of the LCO. I then spoke to the GM and JTO and gave them a sounding for wasting my time and energy in what should be a fairly automated process. Finally, the JTO relented that the LCO is acting up and they are looking to replace the LCO with someone more reliable and trustworthy. He asked me to somehow manage till they finalize the new LCO.
But I cannot wait for their mistake so I was looking for other options and took Netfi who is a local broadband provider. I have heard horror stories from previous customers regarding Netfi but someone assured me that ever since they switched to fiber, things have been pretty smooth. So I opted to take the 100Mbps plan (300 GB FUP) for 1299+tax and another 1500 for installation. It's not the greatest plan in Bangalore but I must say I have been impressed so far. Speeds are as promised and so far haven't noticed any downtime. Here's the Speedtest result. Averaging gives about 95 Mbps downloads and 85 Mbps uploads
Source
The gist of the matter is, if you are going for BSNL, do some background research on the LCO or be prepared to lose significant amounts of time for nothing. Like others, I can't wait to see what Jio would be bringing to the table but I think it will take some time to reach my area. Till then, I hope Netfi can sustain my needs.
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