Airtel Broadband Has Literally Given up in Hyderabad, Gotta see these Flyers

swatkats said:
This is not Docsis 1.0 setup FYI.
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Hah, what i was referring to does to come with a cable modem so no docsis at all. its just an ethernet cable. Any lightning strike nearby means default NIC change. This was my cable setup circa 2005 before airtel moved into my area. mom & pop shop.

swatkats said:
FTTB: Your connection is attached to an Optical network Terminal (ONT) which has power backup of 4 Hours > Repeaters for Some 100 mts overhead > Optical Network Unit (ONU) For every area > Underground Fiber to POP > Underground Fiber to NOC > Tier 1 Providers like TATA and Airtel.
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fiber cuts take how long to fix ? much longer than regular cable isn't it. How many fiber cuts have you had btw. Tell me about the reliability of this oh so great service.

When the ACT guy called me about this internet service i said are your cables underground or over the trees. He said he would get back to me. Never did.

swatkats said:
Since you are so proud of Airtel with a decade old technology , I'll Tell you my Airtel Broadband Story.. I had the connection 4 years back, Wish i remember that Account number no, Just for your reference and you could have pulled out my details where you are working.
So, The power used to go the modem doesn't work, Even when i was using it on my laptop, The same case. But Beam/ACT has power backup.

So I guess i decided to get a Inverter for my home after few months, Despite of powering up modem during power cuts The connection didn't work. Technician told me there is backup issue which continued till 3 months every after follow up with CC every now and then, after which i finally gave up the connection. I find no difference Airtel and Beam here both have Same standard of service. No wonder, why they couldn't attract Even high end customers who don't care about money.
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This is not my case with artel whose cable is armoured and comes underground. I dont use their phone service just internet. We're not surrendering our old landline number. I don't care for triple play, phone, tv, internet are by three different companies.

Who cares what gen tech is used when cables are susceptible to cuts and repair can be a 2 day long affair.
 
blr_p said:
fiber cuts take how long to fix ? much longer than regular cable isn't it. How many fiber cuts have you had btw. Tell me about the reliability of this oh so great service.

When the ACT guy called me about this internet service i said are your cables underground or over the trees. He said he would get back to me. Never did.
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Never had any downtime in the last 3 years,Due to fiber cuts or power cuts .. Nada Nada Nada.

Should have heard of Redundancy, well that keeps my internet connection Working 24x7. Poor Airtel cannot boast about their uptime here at least. Cannot comment on Bangalore.
 
blr_p said:
I never have loss of connection during power cuts on airtel. I can say the internet cable guys have been roundly out competed on my street, a few still use them ACT for the price.
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1. I guess this is subjective to the place you are in. For me, Airtel connection didn't work (despite powering the modem of course) during power cuts at both Chandigarh and Hyderabad. Not sure whether phone worked since I never bothered with it. This has been the experience of several others that I know. Even with an UPS powering the modem, it does not work. So yeah, just because its a ADSL connection does not mean that it would work perfectly during power cuts.Of course you can ask them, but they can always say that they never promised operation during power cuts.

2. Airtel has underground cables everywhere is also a myth. laying underground cables requires them to take permission from the local authorities and Airtel has gotten into trouble regularly for unauthorized digging and laying of cables. In Hyderabad, they use cables hanging on poles at many places. Also in many places, the connectivity to apartment buildings is through LAN type UTP cables. Inside the house, the same is still connected to a modem. these lines can get cut as with any other operators.

3. As far as reliability goes, Beam has been on average better than Airtel both in terms of downtime and the avg time to react and fix once an issue is reported. Airtel service guy usually comes the next day after giving a complaint. For beam service guy, unless you make a complaint for 6.30PM, he would come the same day.

After I replaced my Reliance connection with Beam, I still had my sisters Airtel connection as well at home, I thought I would retain it as a backup, but what was happening is that if I don't use it for 2 weeks, they would disconnect me and still kept charging me. If I ever need to use the connection, I would find that it does not work and require me to contact Airtel and the guy would come the next day to fix it and by that time, my beam connection would already have been fixed.
 
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There are two aspects to the internet connection. one is the technology and the other is customer service of the ISP. Airtel sucks at both. Beam cable sends sms even when they do preventive maintanence and also their tickets have 24 hour ETA for someone to attend. Airtel can never catch Beam in Hyderabad and I am waiting to see Airtel charging internet users extra for VOIP for their ADSL users.
 
Lord Nemesis said:
1. I guess this is subjective to the place you are in. For me, Airtel connection didn't work (despite powering the modem of course) during power cuts at both Chandigarh and Hyderabad. Not sure whether phone worked since I never bothered with it. This has been the experience of several others that I know. Even with an UPS powering the modem, it does not work. So yeah, just because its a ADSL connection does not mean that it would work perfectly during power cuts.Of course you can ask them, but they can always say that they never promised operation during power cuts.
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I don't understand why this is happening, way i described it has been my experience since day 1. Power just went out for 45 minutes and i browsed the board and replied. Course my back up is only good for a little over an hour. Anything longer and the laptop has to be shut down. Without the laptop the modem & wifi router work for two hours without issue.

Haven't you called somebody up on a landline and when the power goes out they tell you. My BSNL line never went dead during a power cut. Course i'm not talking about 10 hr long cuts, more like an hour or two which is a regular occurrence.

Lord Nemesis said:
2. Airtel has underground cables everywhere is also a myth. laying underground cables requires them to take permission from the local authorities and Airtel has gotten into trouble regularly for unauthorized digging and laying of cables. In Hyderabad, they use cables hanging on poles at many places. Also in many places, the connectivity to apartment buildings is through LAN type UTP cables. Inside the house, the same is still connected to a modem. these lines can get cut as with any other operators.
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When they were called touchtel they installed these little boxes by the side of the road. all the cables are underground. When the shifted their distribution box over to my premises i got to see their armoured 1 inch cable. There are over 15 connection connected to it at the back. Whether this is the case everywhere i cannot say but it certainly is the case where i live and has been so for over a decade now. Yes, it does require permission from the authorities but they know they can make it back. I call up airtel maybe once a year for a problem. It just works and is as reliable as roadrunner when i was in NYC.

Lord Nemesis said:
3. As far as reliability goes, Beam has been on average better than Airtel both in terms of downtime and the avg time to react and fix once an issue is reported. Airtel service guy usually comes the next day after giving a complaint. For beam service guy, unless you make a complaint for 6.30PM, he would come the same day.
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Have heard good things about Beam for some time now. I don't live in Hyderabad. Uploads are very good i only get 0.5-1Mbs upload on airtel.

Lord Nemesis said:
After I replaced my Reliance connection with Beam, I still had my sisters Airtel connection as well at home, I thought I would retain it as a backup, but what was happening is that if I don't use it for 2 weeks, they would disconnect me and still kept charging me. If I ever need to use the connection, I would find that it does not work and require me to contact Airtel and the guy would come the next day to fix it and by that time, my beam connection would already have been fixed.
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This is something i've never got to test out as its my primary. I cannot imagine replacing it with anything else as reliable.
 
Lord Nemesis said:
2. Airtel has underground cables everywhere is also a myth. laying underground cables requires them to take permission from the local authorities and Airtel has gotten into trouble regularly for unauthorized digging and laying of cables. In Hyderabad, they use cables hanging on poles at many places. Also in many places, the connectivity to apartment buildings is through LAN type UTP cables. Inside the house, the same is still connected to a modem. these lines can get cut as with any other operators.
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In Bangalore all have laid underground cables illegally. At most times they have used sewage lines. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities...mes-what-bbmp-has-approved/article5401890.ece
 
blr_p said:
I don't understand why this is happening, way i described it has been my experience since day 1. Power just went out for 45 minutes and i browsed the board and replied. Course my back up is only good for a little over an hour. Anything longer and the laptop has to be shut down. Without the laptop the modem & wifi router work for two hours without issue.

Haven't you called somebody up on a landline and when the power goes out they tell you. My BSNL line never went dead during a power cut. Course i'm not talking about 10 hr long cuts, more like an hour or two which is a regular occurrence.
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BSNL off course always had backup power to allow the phones to work during power cuts i.e. at least since we got a land line back in 1995. I even used to have a few of those batteries they used.
Not so sure about Airtel though. With all the cabling hacks they have to do to get the lines into the buildings, I suspect they cannot provide backup power everywhere.
 
Lord Nemesis said:
BSNL off course always had backup power to allow the phones to work during power cuts i.e. at least since we got a land line back in 1995. I even used to have a few of those batteries they used.
Not so sure about Airtel though. With all the cabling hacks they have to do to get the lines into the buildings, I suspect they cannot provide backup power everywhere.
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Exactly, BSNL has backup, so i don't understand how airtel where you lived did not have it. They can use any hacks they want but in the end, its a phone line and your ADSL signal travels down it to the exchange. That is where the battery backup for the IP routing is located.
 
I said, 4 mbps DSL, not ADSL. 4 mbps up and same down. They won't give fiber until 20 mbps or you pay yearly. Either way, Failtel is mostly out.[DOUBLEPOST=1419756777][/DOUBLEPOST]As for fibre cuts, Airtel had a fibre cut in Andheri yesterday. They took almost 1.5 hours to fix it (could be a minor cut, can't say), which is waay better than other ISPs in other locations, where it goes upto 12 hours (worst case).
 
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Well, my experience with Airtel so far has been good (though yes, costly plans). Both my connections in Delhi and in Lucknow (where my folks live) got installed in less than 36 hours of taking my KYC. No downtime at either of the places till now. Even the CC is great. Just yday, mom called up saying the phone line had a weird hum in the background and thus calls were not possible. Called up Airtel CC and a technician arrived and fixed the same in less than 2 hours post call. Very impressive.
 
Airtel - On the installation part, we had to go up the escalation matrix. They took about 20 days to install the leased line, with the MUX being less than 150 metres away.

Tata (for a broadband line, not leased line) is not good in this either - they took the cheque, and later said they had no spare capacity
 
alekhkhanna said:
Well, my experience with Airtel so far has been good (though yes, costly plans). Both my connections in Delhi and in Lucknow (where my folks live) got installed in less than 36 hours of taking my KYC. No downtime at either of the places till now. Even the CC is great. Just yday, mom called up saying the phone line had a weird hum in the background and thus calls were not possible. Called up Airtel CC and a technician arrived and fixed the same in less than 2 hours post call. Very impressive.
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Did you lose internet during a power outage ?

your experience is typical, it was the Delhi guys at IBF that recommended airtel al those years ago.
 
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blr_p said:
Did you lose internet during a power outage ?

your experience is typical, it was the Delhi guys at IBF that recommended airtel al those years ago.
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My Airtel was installed (ADSL) quite fast. The sales guy came within 12H..and took 1K (which was adjusted in the first bill). Next day the line-man came and activated the phone line. The flats here are all ready pre-wired internally, so they expose the node and attach an RJ11 connector with the splitter. They do this at two points, where ever we choose, since all rooms have a node installed. Then the Airtel engineer came and bound the router MAC to my account (and put in the ISP settings), and the connection was active, along with the phone line..!
 
They've never bound any MAC addresses for me and i've been through numerous modem routers and reconnected without issue. Never used MAC spoofing.

Lord Nemesis said:
1. I guess this is subjective to the place you are in. For me, Airtel connection didn't work (despite powering the modem of course) during power cuts at both Chandigarh and Hyderabad. Not sure whether phone worked since I never bothered with it. This has been the experience of several others that I know. Even with an UPS powering the modem, it does not work. So yeah, just because its a ADSL connection does not mean that it would work perfectly during power cuts.Of course you can ask them, but they can always say that they never promised operation during power cuts.
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Sloppy exchange management. No excuse to lose your connection.
 
blr_p said:
They've never bound any MAC addresses for me and i've been through numerous modem routers and reconnected without issue. Never used MAC spoofing.
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I asked him, when the MAC was bound. He said non-bound routers can be used. Just need to call the CC and disengage the current one. Will let you know, when I change it and/or it burns out.

How old is your connection. Maybe MAC binding is a new protocol for Airtel.
 
Ok on the topic of Airtel's fast resolution. I was forced to work from home today and found my fixed line down, killing off the broadband. Called them and they gave me a 5 hr window for resolving the issue. Got a call from them to send a technician within the hour. Fortunately it was only a temporary setback and the connection was back before the technician was needed.
 
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