Excitel Broadband Questions

[apuw]

Hi,
I am planning to get a new Internet connection in Delhi and I have narrowed my choices down to Excitel and Nextra. Can you answer these questions related to Excitel:

1) The plans seem too good to be true, 50 Mbps for only Rs. 700, and it appears that they likely are. In a series of excellent reviews by blogger Yogesh Sarkar he says that the claimed speeds are only available for Excitel's peering partners such as Hotstar, Google, Youtube, Netflix, etc. while when connecting to to other networks and servers such as the ones located in USA the speed only goes upto 20Mbps. While even 20Mbps is impressive what has me worried is this screenshot of a download in one of the reviews:

As you can see the download speed is only topping in KB/s, far from the claimed speeds. Is it true that the speeds go down this drastically or do they stay in the 20Mbps range?

2) I have heard from many people that they face multiple disconnections with Excitel and it takes long hours to get them fixed. Have you faced similar disconnections and how frequently? How do you get these resolved fast?

I go to know about Excitel while searching online and Nextra has plastered multiple posters around my locality. I am not sure about Nextra's service if you can tell me something about them that would be great.

What I am looking for is a fairly stable ISP with low disconnections and speeds upto 10Mbps. Please help me in this regard.


Thank You

 

[Sushubh]

I can only speak about Excitel. Speeds and quality of connectivity is better on peered services like Google, Apple etc.
Connectivity outside these services would wary a lot depending upon the route and network congestion.
On torrents, you should get peak speeds. On downloads from good servers using multiple connections, you should get peak speeds.
Connectivity is shite during congestion times. For example right now. Basically, it has become more or less useless during the 8pm-midnight period because more people are using the net. It would of course depend upon how many connections has your local guy oversold in your area. And how good is the network and qos settings etc.
Downtime and restoring would again depend upon your local LCO. No one can tell you how stable connection is going to be in your area.

I would suggest getting Excitel (or Nextra) and expect the disconnections and have a backup plan in place. Like a Jio or Airtel 4G router for emergencies. I am in fact, paying for Excitel, Den AND Airtel at my place and even then situation is not very pleasing wrt quality of service.

 

[Sushubh]

As for the screenshot. The dude appears to be taking his site backup. BCMTouring appears to be a large site and is probably running on a good quality dedicated. Download speeds would depend upon the quality of connectivity with the hosting he is using. Cheaper hosting accounts do not get much resources wrt bandwidth so it would possibly never saturate your connection. I get pretty good speeds from Dreamhost when I download my own backups through FTP. In the end, nothing is constant. network conditions change through the day. For best experience, use after midnight to get stable speeds and pings.

 

[Rehan Kumar]

Personally, I had quite good experience with excitel and the speed(50, 75. 100 Mbps) is for all servers unlike before when they provided independent and different for peered/non-peered servers, Their service is definitely not good if you ever need to call them, The speed depends on which server the site is using and how is the connection installed in your area as well as how congested is the network, You could definitely give it a try.

 

[apuw]

useless during the 8pm-midnight period

That is an issue as it is the time I would like to use the Internet.

It seems like everything on Excitel depends on the kind of being visited like where it is hosted what connection etc. That is not feasible for me as I would like to have a relatively stable and reliable connection with constant speeds throughout the day regardless of where the site is hosted and what time is it.

What would be an ideal provider for this?

 

[Rehan Kumar]

I think airtel is good for reliability and similar speed across the board if FUP is not a problem for you.

 

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[Sushubh]

the problems during night time might not be noticeable everywhere. a lot depend upon your local lco and how the network is configured at his end. excitel advertises a lot which means they end up selling too many connections. the pg on the side of my house has three excitel cables going to his place. all of them use the same D-Link switch that powers the net at my place. and i am not even counting the numerous connections that are given on the same cable on the route to my house. assuming that cable is capable of gigabit connection, and there are 20+ users sharing it during congestion times... network is going to be fucked up.

 

[Sushubh]

in the end, Excitel is great for folks who spend most of their time on popular web services most of which are covered by peering. it is unusable for gaming because of double nat. and it is unusable for people who seek constant connectivity at stable speeds.

 

[apuw]

@Sushubh Netflix? I think you meant Excitel.

You are right about it being good for people using popular media sites.

Though I would prefer stability over fast peering for limited services (which would lead me to use these limited services more and then we get into the NN debate).

I guess I would have to look for a good LCO who provides good services and whom I am also able to contact directly rather going through multiple hoops.

 

[whenigivein]

@Sushubh if I may ask, are you using a 100Mbps connection?

 

[Sushubh]

i am paying for the lowest 50mbps plan. 100mbps is a bit much for my hardware and i am not ready to upgrade to gigabit lan hardware right now. would need significant investment for little gain.

 

[whenigivein]

OK, thanks for replying. A follow-up question, I called the Excitel guy who is responsible for distributing connection in my locality. I was interested in the Rs. 995 - 100Mbps unlimited connection and I informed him the same.
To this he replies, "the 100Mbps connection in your area would require a Rs. 5000 router to be installed to attain full speeds. By default, we are distributing the Rs. 695 (50Mbps) plan in your area.".

Now you also said that 100mbps might require a special router, but surely I can get a router to support a 100mbps connection at lower price? 5k seems a bit much. Suggestions?

 

[Sushubh]

100mbps would be supported by a cheapo 1000 rupee router. his local network might not be capable of delivering 100mbps at end users because of congestion.

 

[Sushubh]

unless there is a good reason, there is no point of going for a 75mbps or 100mbps connection. you would rarely get that much speed on non-peered servers.

 

[whenigivein]

LEL. It seemed as such. He was a little hesitant with allotting a 100Mbps plan and simply overstated the price to serve as a deterrence. Thanks for the advice though. 🙂