Airtel 4G LTE

Well, at speedtest.net while trying Kolkata Server it shows 22Mbps (approx.) and any other server shows 10Mbps. AFAIK, Airtel 4G is capped at 10Mbps. No idea why Kolkata Server shows 22Mbps.
 
I understand that only those customers who have taken the connection after 1st June have their speed capped at 10 MB.

But even here I have got more than 10 MB speed a couple of times. I got an upload speed of 10.41 MB yesterday.
 
krishnandu said:
Well, at speedtest.net while trying Kolkata Server it shows 22Mbps (approx.) and any other server shows 10Mbps. AFAIK, Airtel 4G is capped at 10Mbps. No idea why Kolkata Server shows 22Mbps.
Click to expand...
I believe its their own Speedtest Server in kolkata. So yes its possible to fake speeds.
 
The saga of routers

4G LTE connections are made through two kinds of devices.

1. Dongle. This is basically a Modem.

2. Router. this is a Modem cum router.

Airtel has so far had three models of routers and a number of models of dongles. I am not aware of the models of dongles.

the three Models of CPE router supplied by Airtel so far are

1. Huawei B593. The First one. It is claimed that Huawei B593 is the first LTE TDD wireless 4g router in the world. Airtel was charging Rs 7750 for this. They reduced it to Rs. 4999 then. You can see the details of this device here.

http://www.huaweib593.com/

This is a absolute overkill. Can run 4 WLAN networks. 32 Devices. 4 LAN ports.
Amazon calls it Industrial.

http://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Broadband-Huawei-B593-Supporting/dp/B00A2F6YKS

This is the router I am using now.

2. ZTE. I do not know the model number. this was the router till a month back. the cost was Rs. 4070.

3. Asiatelco Router. This is the one supplied to me. I had posted a photograph of that.

I have had problems with the Router from day one. I will post next about the problems.
 
^^Yes, the 1st and 2nd models are obsolate now, they are distributing ATEL i.e. Asia Teleco Router and as @sankar_45 said, it has 1000's of problems.

In our group, 2 of us took the router.
 
B 593 Router which I bought second hand through OLX. As good as new.

new_router.jpg
 
I think the BIGGEST PUT OFF in Airtel 4G schemes is the speed after you consume your allocated GBs.
128 kbps is pathetic, it used to be fine a decade ago ... but it is simply criminal today.
(a 10 minute HD video consumes 250 MB - tested and verified, go and figure how long would your plan last)

I told this vehemently in front of the Airtel representative who had come for demo. However, I was really caught off by the attentiveness shown by the Airtel representative. Looks like this is a part of some "elite" team ;-)

Looks like we will have to wait a decade again to see if 4G plans become actually usable.



Also I learnt that for Linux they have Huwaie dongle. After reading around - I see that the drivers/installer for this router has phucked up sudo settings. Leaves a big security hole.
 
Taking about Routers In my opinion Airtel should not have sold the routers and Dongles to the customer. They should have collected a refundable deposit and charged a monthly rent. When most people talk about how expensive 4G is, they are talking about the cost of the Router/Dongle.

The Huawei B 593 Router is selling in Amazon for $ 269.95

It is being sold on http://www.huaweib593.com/ for $ 399.

At the time that 4G was launched in India this was the only 4G router available. Airtel was charging Rs. 7750 that is about $ 172 taking the dollar value then at Rs. 45.

I wonder who was making money here. Did Airtel lose money on the deal? They were definitely not making money on this.

High cost is the reason for Airtel seeking cheaper replacement.

I remember the time when BSNL introduced the Broadband. They kept on changing the routers. Some of them were good, some bad and some horrible. Of course they had a choice because the technology was old and a number of modems/routers were available. Still in the beginning the choice was limited and we were stuck with the modem supplied by BSNL.

Hardly any one knew about the Bsnl modem/router settings and we relied on posting in some web sites.

4G technology is new and there is very little choice regarding Dongles and routers.

I wish Airtel would switch to rental scheme.

This would enable people to experiment. They would only pay for what they have enjoyed. They would not be stuck with a dead equipment.
 
sankar_45 said:
At the time that 4G was launched in India this was the only 4G router available. Airtel was charging Rs. 7750 that is about $ 172 taking the dollar value then at Rs. 45.

I wonder who was making money here. Did Airtel lose money on the deal? They were definitely not making money on this.
Click to expand...
Haha. Not Really. Telecom companies are Good at Bargaining.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, an RIL subsidiary, wants the handset for Rs 5,000 a piece. But the Korean giant is unwilling to go below Rs 8,500 per handset, and that too only if RIL agrees to buy over 3 million handsets. Without that commitment, Samsung has quoted a price of Rs 11,000 per handset.

http://articles.economictimes.india..._ril-tdd-lte-technology-reliance-jio-infocomm
Click to expand...

Company quotes 11k, agrees to negotiate and sell product at 8.5k.. Buyer asks for 55% discount on Original price.
There is also another way to recover that lost money on router if incase they got the router for $172 > Sell plans with high pricing..
If you think Airtel is loosing money then we are Fooling ourselves.
 
Coming back to the saga of my router installation, I was told by my dealer that the router was new and none of them knew anything about it. They had scheduled a training session for that. The sales executive was hoping I would be able to install it myself.

I did that. As I said earlier the two problems were Signal Strength and Wifi connection to the laptop. I had posted earlier about the improvement in signal strength.

About the connection to the laptop, the internet connection was being made intermittently.

Now this is one of the most common problems encountered in net-working. 2,780,000 hits in Google.

None of the people employed by Airtel/ZTE or the dealer are Net working specialists. They know the basics. That is all.

All the people who came to my house checked the signal. One of them tinkered around with the settings on the router. What he was doing was to compare the settings with the settings in his router. That is all.

After trying out a number of solutions and checking with net work software like Xirrus WiFi inspector, I was almost sure that the problem was with the router.

But the problem was convincing the Airtel guys. The only way was to bring another router and try with that. They were reluctant to do that.

I was forced to complain in writing to Airtel. Their complaint mechanism is good. My E mail was replied immediately. Next day another person came with a router and tried it. Everything worked fine. But even then he would not vouchsafe that the router supplied to me was bad. Because he is not qualified to do that. One boy who ventured to do that was told off by the others. I told them over the phone to replace the router.

Of course in the mean time I had bought a second hand Router. So my problem was solved.

I have surrendered my old router to the dealer. They do not have stock of new router. They have promised to replace the router when they get new stock.

This experience with Airtel reminds me of the time that I had bought a new assembled computer in 1997 with Windows 95. I used to get frequent Blue Screen of death. Much more than normal. The dealer replaced the hard disk and reinstalled the operating systems. After trying out everything for more than two months, I started reading up about it on the Internet. I read somewhere that it could be because of problems in RAM chips.

The dealer refused to believe that it was possible as the computer was starting all right. It took a lot of persuasion to convince him to try with new RAM chips. The problem was solved.

I have used up about 7 GB so far. I will know about the speed after the 10 GB limit only later.
 
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