Excitel Broadband - Comprehensive Review - 5Mbps - SDSL - Unlimited - no FUP

StickySlime

Disciple
Hi.

I'm here to put forward an honest and comprehensive review of Excitel's Broadband internet services provided in Delhi, India.

Official Website: http://www.excitel.com/
Pamphlet Screen-Shot: http://i.imgur.com/FeKQU4g.jpg

Stamped contact number on the pamphlet I received: http://i.imgur.com/s7awqZt.jpg

Back-Story
Previously, I was using an MTNL internet connection, but considering the painful 4 years I had lived with it, I thought it was time to move on. Besides, I found Excitel's pamphlet/advertisement and I decided it was definitely worth a try. Let's find out.

Switching Period
It took me 3 trips to get my MTNL connection disconnected and finally, I gave a call on the number stamped onto the advertisement, as opposed to the Excitel customer care number, since I thought, that the stamped number would be belonging to the local incharge pertaining to Excitel, and that it would speed things up a bit (since I had already disconnected the MTNL connection).

I was surprised to find out that the connection would be setup before 6 PM, the same day (and it was a Saturday). I also found out that they attend new connection requests even on Sundays.

Anyway, so they kept their promise and two people showed up to get the connection setup. They had a brand new box of good quality Cat 5e cable, which they used to connect the DP (Distribution Point?) directly to my household with 0 joints/junctions. It is to be noted, however, that their backbone is entirely FIBER cable powered. They leave their FIBER cable into your locality and a Cat 5e cable connects the DP to your household.

I was more than satisfied with the quality of the fitting and cabling procedures.

Payment
They only offer prepaid payments for now, payment via online methods is NOT possible at the moment. However, you don't need to go anywhere to pay the monthly charges. Within the first week of every month, someone from your local cable operator/local distribution partner will come over and collect the charges from your doorstep.

The information regarding plans and tariff can be checked via their official website, a link to which has been provided above.

There is a ONE TIME charge of Rs. 500/- for installation and setup. This charge isn't refundable, of course.

Present Day
I had my internet up and running before 6 PM, exactly as they had promised. It was now time to test my new internet connection and I had a lot of hopes and expectations from it.

Goes without saying that the first thing I did was a speed test.

Plan Name: "ReelTime 649"
Download Speed: 5 Mbps (640 KB/s real-time speed)
Upload Speed: 5 Mbps (640 KB/s real-time speed)
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Download Speed (Youtube / Torrents): 20 Mbps (2.5 MB/s or 2560 KB/s real-time speed)
Upload Speed (Youtube / Torrents): 20 Mbps (2.5 MB/s or 2560 KB/s real-time speed)
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PROS

-- SDSL connection, NOT ADSL. Other ISPs offer things like 10 Mbps download speed and 512 Kbps upload speed. With Excitel, if you get a 5 Mbps connection, download speed = upload speed = 5 Mbps.

5053398341.png
eb65e9e484cef12fee4a5852b0fdc2fa.png


-- EXCELLENT peering with Youtube. I seriously mean it. Like seriously. I have deleted the word "buffering" from my dictionary after choosing Excitel.

Proof


5053391388.png
70b01883caaf7756b5a70ebb3fccb987.png


http://sendvid.com/0pbch20p

This is a video I recorded of myself watching a 4K video on Youtube. Just watch it to believe it. Nothing else to say.

-- 20 Mbps (2.5 MB/s or 2560 KB/s real-time speed) while using Youtube / Torbox.net. This is valid even if you're on the 5 Mbps plan (same as me).

-- Excellent peering with EU / US servers. If you're into gaming and you play on gaming servers located in Europe / North America, you'll get a lower ping using Excitel. For a comparison ... I used to get 200 - 250 ping using MTNL on some European servers. Now I get 130ms - 150ms.

-- Almost ZERO jitter. This connection is super stable and if you test the jitter to different servers, you will note that the ping value almost never fluctuates and stays a sweet low and stable. This is extremely important for gamers.

-- If you upload videos to YouTube, often, this is the connection you should get. Video uploads to YouTube are done at 2.5 MB/s (real time speed) on my connection.

CONS
-- None witnessed so far.
 
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Strong first post .. That aside, I've made a connection request to Excitel before but got no response other than the automated E-mail. Guess it's not available here. Where are you from? I'd take the connection if it's from my Local TV cable operator, who has had great service for years. Or any other reliable local guy since the service seems to be more dependent on the local operator? There seem to be a lot of complaints on Excitel facebook though I guess people with fine might just not praise.

Can you tell if there is Vimeo peering? I have a 4mbps connection with no higher speed peering. Youtube 720p60 and 1080p30 videos play fine now as a lot of them are encoded with vp9 though the quality isn't that great. But vimeo needs around 6-7 mbps which would play without peering if the speeds are as said in 10mbps connection.
 
I've made a connection request to Excitel before but got no response other than the automated E-mail. Guess it's not available here.

You could try calling the number(s) that were listed on the pamphlet I had received. I've linked to it within the first post of this thread.

Where are you from? I'd take the connection if it's from my Local TV cable operator, who has had great service for years. Or any other reliable local guy since the service seems to be more dependent on the local operator?

I'm from Delhi (West). The specifics aren't required, nor desired. Accept my apologies for that.
Anyway, yeah, you're right, the rudimentary repairs are done by your local cable operator, so for connectivity issues (should they arise, which they haven't, in my case, yet) of rudimentary nature, you'd want to contact your local cable operator first, before contacting Excitel. Furthermore, if there's any issue that's beyond the scope of your cable operator (something to do with Excitel's servers or with the fiber cable), then your cable operator will (and should) escalate the issue to Excitel on their own.

If you're from Delhi, you should first try calling on the number(s), as explained above, however, if that doesn't work, you could always ask your cable operator directly if there's a possibility of some sort of tie up between them and Excitel, which might actually work out if there's sufficient demand for it within your locality and if Excitel provides service near your locality, of course.

There seem to be a lot of complaints on Excitel facebook though I guess people with fine might just not praise.

There are two reasons I can attribute to those negative reviews / responses:

Either,
(a) They're people who live in a locality wherein Excitel's network isn't as "set-in" as it is in other localities, such as mine, for example.
or
(b) Some of those reviews are left by agents of rival ISPs with the intent of discrediting and denigrating Excitel, as an attempt to impede its progress or success.

The only valid point within most of the negative opinions / reviews that I came across was the fact that Excitel's customer care number is busy for a major part of the day. My only guess is that since they're a relatively new company, they're still struggling to cope up with the capacity of customers that their customer care agents can support. That's definitely something they should work hard on, which they will, I'd assume, but until then, people will have something concrete to complain about.

Also, some problems can be countered, simply, if people know what to do, in case their internet isn't working properly. The first thing should be a call to your local cable operator or some other repair guy related to your cable operator. They're the fastest possible way you can probably get things sorted out, but no ... people seem to enjoy calling the customer care number, even though they're completely aware of the congestion issue regarding the same. I'm not saying that this is the customer's fault, however, I'm just trying to highlight the failure to ascertain and recognize the best possible METHOD of getting things done.

Can you tell if there is Vimeo peering? I have a 4mbps connection with no higher speed peering. Youtube 720p60 and 1080p30 videos play fine now as a lot of them are encoded with vp9 though the quality isn't that great. But vimeo needs around 6-7 mbps which would play without peering if the speeds are as said in 10mbps connection.

No, there's no special peering augmentation efforts as far as Vimeo is concerned. Nevertheless, just so you can have a clear idea, I went on Vimeo and started a random video, along with a speed graph (thanks to Networx) running beside it.
http://sendvid.com/nfglcjlc
As you can see, I started the video with 720p and needless to say, that was pretty smooth all the way through. Then, I shifted to 1080p and things started to get a bit close, but still, it never buffered. However, if you're planning on watching 1080p on Vimeo, you'd need to go with the 10 Mbps connection to get a bit more comfortable with streaming, instead of the 5 Mbps one, as you already know. Although, 5 Mbps seems to work just fine, although close enough to the buffer mark.

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EDIT:
Bonus Video: http://sendvid.com/8n70hl1e
Speed via downloading a torrent.
 
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Thanks for the reply. I will try calling them. Would be nice if people gave more positive reviews for good service. Many times you can't find sufficient info on ISP's though people are using them to connect to the Internet.

In the map on Excitel site whole of Delhi NCR is covered and there are some marks though I can't understand what they are for. Perhaps they indicate areas where they are rolled out? There isn't a marker near my area.
 
Thanks for the reply. I will try calling them. Would be nice if people gave more positive reviews for good service. Many times you can't find sufficient info on ISP's though people are using them to connect to the Internet.

In the map on Excitel site whole of Delhi NCR is covered and there are some marks though I can't understand what they are for. Perhaps they indicate areas where they are rolled out? There isn't a marker near my area.

Did you establish contact with them, yet?
I've been using Excitel for about a week or so, now. Zero downtime so far, however, the connection DID go down at around 11:35 PM yesterday, but it was back again after 5 minutes on its own.

Their customer care number is not accessible during the wee hours. This means, that if your internet goes down at night, hypothetically speaking, then you can't set it right by any of your actions; you'd need to wait until morning, or until it fixes itself on its own (which it did in my case), but still, this is something worth knowing. However I didn't have any downtime yet, apart from those 5 minutes mentioned earlier.

Dropping some screenshots here:
Subh2Jk.png

iYpqLSX.png

gBd5RB1.png
 
I recently got a pamphlet in my mail as well.. How is the speed in torrents on private trackers? Is the 20Mbps only for Torbox.net? Any changes in speed during peak time usage?
 
How is the speed in torrents on private trackers?
Well, I'm a long standing member of TD (a private tracker) (Ratio: 11+, Uploaded: 6.5 TB+), so I'll show you a screenshot of me running a torrent from there:
http://i.imgur.com/EWVpZ5O.png

Is the 20Mbps only for Torbox.net?
Yes. As you can make out by the screenshot I posted above, augmented speeds aren't valid for private trackers. That augmented speed is only available for YouTube / TorBox.

It is important to note, however, that the augmented speeds are also available for other torrents (from public trackers) on the internet, which are cached by TorBox . For example, approximately, 6/10 popular torrents of TPB can be downloaded via the augmented speed (20 Mbps in my case).

Just so you have an idea, I have prepared this screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/4pRe8Zl.png
All torrents with a "green play button" or a "green happy face" are speed-augmented torrents (20 Mbps), only the "red sad face" torrents will download with your regular broadband tariff speed (5 Mbps in my case).

Any changes in speed during peak time usage?
None that I've noticed yet. I have never gone below my rated speed (630-640 KB/s = 5 Mbps) since I've availed their services. However, I have noticed that during the night, you can go ABOVE and beyond your rated speed (I get 1 MB/s at night instead of 630-640 KB/s).

Updating a steam game at night (getting 1 MB/s instead of 630-640 KB/s): https://i.gyazo.com/f0acdb4d9c1af3f672bacd42c9e0a862.png

Also, if this will help someone in the future, I'll drop in some ways to contact Excitel customer support:
https://i.gyazo.com/be0821eaab30bcbaa9caf2c8aa3fc2db.png

It lists their Skype address, which is quite possibly the best way to get 24x7 support, haven't tried that personally, yet, however. It also lists their email address (second best option, in my opinion) and two contact numbers (not recommended by me).
 
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Another update. Since today morning, my connection speed somehow got limited to 2 Mbps instead of the usual 5 Mbps.
I called my cable operator, but he directed me to Excitel's customer care number. That's probably because speed related issues can be fixed by the ISP, not the cable operator.

http://i.imgur.com/oORMgir.png
http://i.imgur.com/352ziv2.png

Anyway, so I called Excitel and was connected to a customer support representative in about 2 minutes. I explained the entire issue and initially, they fiddled with the usual basic stuff such as pinging some IP address, trying to disable windows / Kaspersky's firewall etc. Then they connected to my computer via TeamViewer (remote access) and tried doing the usual basic stuff.

They claimed that the speed I was getting (2 Mbps) was in-line with the speed I should have been getting on my 5 Mbps connection, since the speed is not 5 Mbps throughout the day. I explained them how there was no fluctuation at all and that the speeds have been fixed at 2.06 Mbps since several hours and that it never goes past that value.

In between all this, they asked me to disconnect the call, but keep the remote access as is. I disconnected the call and they kept changing stuff here and there, pinging google's DNS and what not.

While they were still doing stuff on the computer, changing some network settings resulted in my computer to restart, ending the remote access and the call was already disconnected at that point of time, but they were considerate enough to call back again (of their own accord), which is something worth noting.

Most of the stuff they were fiddling with, on my computer, had nothing to do with the actual problem (firewall on/off, uninstalling IDM etc), but I let them do their thing just so that they're mentally satisfied that those aren't the issues. After about 30 minutes of fiddling, they finally did something at their end and the issue was fixed instantly. I tested and confirmed this using a speed test (speedtest.net).

This is the screenshot taken at that exact moment when it was fixed: http://i.imgur.com/mrzk4p7.png
The highlighted text in that screenshot is from me, the others are from their customer support.

Overall, I'd say the experience was good enough. They could take lesser time, but they might be obliged to go through their usual protocol when it comes to diagnosing internet connections.

Issued is fixed now :)
 
I got the 5 mbps connection 2 weeks ago and its good for the price. Close to zero downtime and the connection is stable.
Here is a screenshot downloading data from google servers.
VVNaO2f.jpg


This is from local peering.

5090099979.png
 
I'd like to know the service quality after a month or so. These ISPs with exciting plans have great quality which degrade overtime. However if its reliable and they provide service to the area which I will move in then I will consider getting it. I want to avoid LOLtel and MTNL.
I got the 5 mbps connection 2 weeks ago and its good for the price. Close to zero downtime and the connection is stable.
Here is a screenshot downloading data from google servers.
VVNaO2f.jpg


This is from local peering.

5090099979.png
Extreme Arena ISP? I used to frequent their gaming cafe near Kamla Nagar a lot.
Wait, is Excitel=Extreme Arena? o_O
 
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I'd like to know the service quality after a month or so. These ISPs with exciting plans have great quality which degrade overtime. However if its reliable and they provide service to the area which I will move in then I will consider getting it. I want to avoid LOLtel and MTNL.
I switched from MTNL after so much issues. I am using DEN (3-4 months) at my home and Excitel in the office.
In case of DEN the speed vary a lot like something it gives 3-4 mbps and sometimes 20 mbps but it is atleast as stable as MTNL.
Extreme Arena ISP? I used to frequent their gaming cafe near Kamla Nagar a lot.
Wait, is Excitel=Extreme Arena?o_O
I was wondering about Extreme Arena too. I don't know really.
 
Well Extreme Arena is an ISP and has staff from Europe. Excitel also has similar description and i thought their logos also share some resemblance. Plus "Extreme Arena" is a weird name for an ISP. Having considered all these i thought they changed their name to "Excitel."
In the case of Den cable networks, my uncle and his family live near Goldak Khanna, near RML and their services are not so good at his place. We have made numerous complaints in the past. Hopefully the services will have improved now.
Nevertheless I can't wait to go back to Delhi now. I was thinking of going to Bangalore instead because of the better IT infrastructures there but this thread has opened up a new life for me as I preferred staying in Delhi. Excitel is very exciting! Can't wait to try out their net services.
@StickySlime what is the total billing amount inclusive of all taxes and other charges (excluding installation charge).
 
Youtube works so well on Excitel. Literally zero buffering on 1080p. It was so pathetic on MTNL.
One more thing, excitel guys went out of their way to install my connection, it was not available in my area.
 
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Thanks for the reply. I will try calling them. Would be nice if people gave more positive reviews for good service. Many times you can't find sufficient info on ISP's though people are using them to connect to the Internet.

In the map on Excitel site whole of Delhi NCR is covered and there are some marks though I can't understand what they are for. Perhaps they indicate areas where they are rolled out? There isn't a marker near my area.

Yeah same here, the maps is a little weird.

I have been trying to call them last couple of days but I only get the option to leave a VM.

-- Excellent peering with EU / US servers. If you're into gaming and you play on gaming servers located in Europe / North America, you'll get a lower ping using Excitel. For a comparison ... I used to get 200 - 250 ping using MTNL on some European servers. Now I get 130ms - 150ms.

Could you tell me which game is this?

Also thanks for the review and general insights guys.
 
Is there no nearer server than Eu/NA for LoL? 100ms is high and 150ms is insane. In Dota2 that is. Even a few milli-seconds delay (Blink Dagger+a skill) can win/cost you a match.
Could I get a <50ms on SEA server? Theoretically.
 
Is there no nearer server than Eu/NA for LoL? 100ms is high and 150ms is insane. In Dota2 that is. Even a few milli-seconds delay (Blink Dagger+a skill) can win/cost you a match.
Could I get a <50ms on SEA server? Theoretically.

This is an unrelated discussion, so to not derail the thread, I'll take this conversation to PMs.
 
Hi,

Its been a whole month (Feb) since I've been using Excitel. Things have been great so far. Compare the data transferred between the months of January and February (Jan = MTNL, Feb = Excitel):

2016-03-04_16-35-57.png

Furthermore, there are a couple of other things worth mentioning about Excitel's internet, that I just recently figured out. First of all, be aware of the fact that with Excitel, you will be "Double NAT'd". For those of you who have no idea what that is, allow me to explain.

Normally, when you get an internet connection from an ISP, you connect your computer to a router and the router connects to the WAN IP provided by the ISP. So, essentially, your router gets the public IP of your internet connection directly from the ISP. This involves just a single NAT, which is that of your router and this is the most commonly found orientation as far as broadband internet is concerned.

However, double NAT is a completely different ball game. Fortunately or unfortunately, Excitel uses double NAT. In this orientation, your computer is connected to your router. However, on the router, instead of receiving the public IP address directly as the WAN IP, you will instead receive a private IP address. So basically the connection has two middle-men instead of just one. Your computer sends a message to your router, which in-turn sends the message to the second NAT (ISP end) WAN IP and this ISP end gateway / 2nd NAT forwards the message to the outer world, i.e. the internet.

Now, as far as advantages are concerned, you get super fast torrent downloads thanks to local peer connectivity, which I believe, is dependent upon the second NAT discussed previously. The disadvantage, however, is the fact that anyone on the outside (from the internet) will NEVER be able to contact your computer directly. This is terrible for IP cameras, games that require port forwarding, torrents (they need ports forwarded to be able to accept incoming connections) etc. Basically anything that requires connections from outside to be received on your computer WILL NOT work out of the box.

As a solution, Excitel offers a static IP upon request. You will require to pay Rs. 1100/- per YEAR for this. I'm not sure if this will have any impact on the local peer connectivity / torbox / augmented speeds, but I don't think those things should be affected by this.

Below, I'm including a screenshot of a torrent running via augmented speeds. Its downloading at 3.09 MB/s (24.72 Mbps) while I'm on a 5 Mbps connection. :)

2016-03-04_16-08-44.png

However, as you can see, although I have downloaded the entire torrent at insane speeds which are 5 times faster than the connection speed I'm paying for, I will NOT be able to connect to any peers that are trying to connect to me and thus, I will NOT be able to SEED torrents back in the most optimal way. Be advised, seeding can still be done and it works, just not to the maximum amount that you could possibly do, in a single NAT environment.

I'd reckon this would be hated by those of you who use PRIVATE trackers, such as me. Your ratio is going to be hit, lol. However, the static IP does really seem like a good option, since it guarantees that everything will work perfectly and seamlessly.
 
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