Hathway's H-Fiber broadband and how it's better than most of the ISPs out there.....

Before I even start on how H-Fiber is better than other ISPs, let me throw some light on what it is actually.

Hathway's H-Fiber is a bit different than Hathway Broadband, or atleast that's the case in our locality (Kolkata). How? Let's see:-

1. Mode of transmission:

Hathway broadband is served directly from ISP's local node to the customer's premises. There is absolutely no involvement of any Local Cable Operator in any way. However, H-Fiber is served via your local cable operator.

This means, if your LCO is a shitty man, you're bound to experience a shitty fibre broadband connection.

2. Medium of transmission:

Hathway broadband uses Coaxial/Ethernet/Fibre in many places. H-Fiber, as the name suggests, is a pure Fibre-to-the-Home network.

3. Websites, login pages and all that...:

Hathway broadband's website is www.hathway.com and their account login page is ispselfcare.hathway.net .
H-Fiber's website is hfiber.in and their account login page is hfiber.in/CustomerPaynow/Frmcustomerlogin.aspx .

Also, Hathway customers get an app for mobile and a free router (depending on availability). We don't get any of that.

4. Plans and pricing:

Following is a snapshot of Hathway Broadband's Plan for Kolkata:

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Following is a snapshot of the pamphlet provided to us by the LCO:

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Comparing both, there is a very little price difference. The major difference would be that, Hathway's Connection has FUP, H-Fiber is truely unlimited.


Now, enough with the comparison. Let's see why it is better than the rest....

Reason 1: All ports are open.

Yes, you read that right. All ports are open in H-Fiber. And by all, I mean all, be it port 25, 80, 443 or something else. Here's a snapshot from canyouseeme.org:

6HTaacE.webp



Reason 2: Symmetric Upload and Download Speeds

Some ISPs in kolkata, such as Alliance, offer non-symmetric speed. Like for example, Alliance broadband users get a Down speed of 60 Mbps and an Up spped of 15Mbps. Such is not the case with H-Fiber. Download and Upload speeds remain the same, always.

I use the 70Mbps plan for Rs. 700/- (excluding GST).

Reason 3: Dynamic Public IP Address Allocation

The IP address assigned to you will be a dynamic public IP, meaning that you can access your system from outside with your public IP only. Another way to say this, the value of "What is my IP" in Google Search will be the exact IP address that your router will have on its WAN port.

Reason 4: Supports Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS

Some users complain about their ISPs blocking 1.1.1.1, or even if you use 1.1.1.1, your data gets routed through ISPs DNS somehow. Such is not the case with H-Fiber.

Also, after changing the DNS IP, you won't have to face the problems of sites getting blocked, as we get to see in Jio's infamous sanskari firewall. This means you can access most of the torrent sites and some other sites (if you know what I mean).

Now, coming down to the cons....

1. Connection through LCO.

2. Customer care knows nothing about plan pricing. Whatever the LCO will tell you, you'll have to blindly accept that. For example, I wanted to buy a static IP from Hathway. But, on contacting them, they told me that you'll have to buy it from LCO, and that they can't help with the pricing either, as they don't possess that kind of information.

Other than that, its mostly a stable connection.

I'll highly recommend this H-Fiber connection to anyone in Kolkata, as I think it's the best we can get till now. Also, I think the plan pricing will be slashed soon, once the Jio GigaFiber commercial roll-out begins.

P.S: Since majority of Hathway's shares are now owned by Reliance, I think they're gonna give similar plan pricing.

I am open to all kinds of questions and queries regarding this connection. Ask any question I'll try my best to answer them.
 
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can you please provide the pics of the equipments the provide,type of fiber cable etc.?
 
It is far better than Alliance , wishnet , meghbela etc. 99.8% uptime, no request timed out. Routing is pretty neat. Latency 60ms India , 80ms SEA (Singapore) , western europe 165ms. No downtime during rain , thunderstorm. Speed as promised ( 50 up 50 down). Not a single website is blocked.
Paid for 6 months in advance installation was free. Paid for 6 months advance again they gave me one free month extra.

Alliance was nightmare for me.
 
Installation was completely free, although that might be because I was already an existing customer of Siti Broadband from the same LCO.
 


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I am having the worst possible internet experience with hathway cable on Docsis 3.0. I get 10-12 Mbps for a 50 Mbps connection. Pings are atrocious. Most of the torrent sites are blocked and reddit randomly gets blocked.
 
@d5aqoëp
You can get rid of the blocking problems by changing your DNS IP address, because I think your DNS IP is set to Hathway's default DNS servers.

Try the above and then check if there's any improvement regarding the ping.
 
And what about those blocked torrent sites ? They remain blocked too, after changing the DNS? Can you name a few sites that are blocked on your connection?
 
Here are some of them screenshots.


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Feel free to ask for more screenshots and test.
 
Coaxial/Ethernet/Fibre

Hathway uses Coaxial only. It works on the DOCSIS 3.0 Technology. Ethernet and Fiber is not the part of it.

Fiber is only used in the backend which I doubt too nowadays.

Thank you for the in-depth review. After a long-time there is some quality post on this forum.

Could you do some tests for me:

Speed Test



tracert 159.89.192.182

tracert 139.59.80.215

CloudPing.info (3 different tests)
 
Hathway uses Coaxial only. It works on the DOCSIS 3.0 Technology. Ethernet and Fiber is not the part of it.

Fiber is only used in the backend which I doubt too nowadays.

Sorry to hear about that, but in my location (Kolkata), Hathway broadband and Hathway H-Fiber, both are pure FTTH connections. But I'm well aware of the fact that in other cities, Hathway is served via Coaxial Cable (some technicolor modem with DOCSIS 3.0).

Anyway, coming back to the results as requested by you.

DigitalOcean BLR1 (Bangalore) speedtest:


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Digital Ocean SGP1 (Singapore) Speedtest:


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Ping Test:

Test 1:


6FNCm0S.png

Test 2:


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Test 3:


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tracert 159.89.192.182 :


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tracert 139.59.80.215 :


BOyPTIb.png
 

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