Service Provider: Fivenet
FiveNetwork is a one of the lesser known providers of BROADBAND Internet access in the Central areas of Mumbai. Currently they are present in Fort, Byculla, Parel, Sewri, Dadar, Wadala, Kings Circle, Matunga, Sion, Koliwada, Antop Hill, Chunabhatti and Ghatkopar.
Local Dealer(Reseller): Weblink (Ghatkopar,Mumbai)
Plan Name: US40C
Plan Details:
750 MB traffic per month (includes downloads/uploads)
11 pm to 9 am Free daily
Sunday 24 hrs free
Bandwidth for the plan: 40 Kbps Officially
Cost: 365 per month (inc. of taxes)
Experience:
I have been using Fivenet for around 7 months now.It wont be wrong if I say that ,overall,I am quite happy with the connection.
As mentioned by PhOeNiX,the service and support is provided by the local cablewala in your area.For me,its Weblink,which provided both Sify
as well as Fivenet connections all over ghatkopar (in mumbai)
Its a PPPoE connection using default windows dialer.
Let me tackle all the important issues one by one:
[BREAK=Speed/Bandwidth]
a. Speed:
Although,my plan offers only 40 kbps officially,I was told at the time of taking connection that it would be a 128 kbps connection.I trusted the guy and wasnt disappointed.The bandwidth provided is uncapped or its an "open pipeline" as they call it I generally get speeds in excess of 256 kbps and at times,it also reaches 3-4 Mbps :O
I say this from experience,when downloading,6 out of 10 times you will get speeds of around 20-30 kBps!I have seen some downloads at over 500 kBps at times..
However,people looking for good upload speeds will be disappointed big time.Even that would be an understatement.I have never seen my upload bandwidth going over 64 kbps.Most of the times its around 50 kbps.But it is good enough to have a voice chat on gtalk (based on my experience)
Also note that the speeds drop a bit between 11 pm to 9 am (when its free),while on sunday it works just great..
Rating: 4 / 5
Check the speed I was getting when I checked it last night:
[BREAK=Choice of Plans]
b. Choice:
The range of plans offered by Fivenet is one of the best I have seen.They have a plan for all types of users.You can know more about it at:
BROADBAND PLANS
As with plans of other providers,the balance "download" left at the end of the month gets forwarded to the next month.One minor flaw (if I can call it) is that for "limited download" plans,a switch from one plan to another results in all your balance getting lost.So be careful before you select the plan of your choice.
Rating: 4 / 5
[BREAK=Cost]
c. Cost:
There was no extra installation charge levied on me.I was just charged for the cable from my home till the terrace of my building.
I am charged 325 + S.T (~365) for US40C.I am quite satisfied with my current plan.However from my observation,the charges for all plans are competitely priced.
Rating: 4 / 5
[BREAK=Service/Support]
d. Service/Support:
Its been a mixed bag so far.I think it wont be fair to make a decision on basis of this point as this is going to vary from provider to provider (Local cablewala)
Fivenet is not very popular in our area.It caters to around 20% of the total users in ghatkopar.As such,the support staff is relatively small in number.According to me,Weblink has not more than 3-4 technical people for providing support.Remember,YMMV
One slightly annoying thing is that you have to inform them to renew your account at the end of every month (as its a prepaid connection).Ok..To be fair,you can even send a mail to the admin in advance asking him to renew it on whicheve date you want.But its not possible to renew the account after 12 am for obvious reasons.So either you end up paying for only 29 days or you do not get to use the service after 12 am on the last day!
Rating: 3 / 5
[BREAK=Downtimes]
e. Downtimes:
One of the most (if not the most) important criteria when selecting a new connection.As mentioned earlier,I have been using it since 7
months.I havent had much problems as far as down times are concerned.
I had a major issue with a down time somewhere around August when my non-working connection was not restored for more than a week despite of repeated complaints.I had later learnt that the support staff was working a major upgrade at that time.But this is definitely not an excuse NOT to restore a connection for as many days as they did.Eventually,the problem was sorted out.
Since then,I havent faced any major issues wrt downtimes.Once in a while (around once a month) it goes down for a few hours randomly,but
its not much, to be honest.Not to mention,they generally shut their connections in case of lightning accompanying heavy rains.
Once again,most of the things highlighted in this point are related directly to the local cablewala.So,YMMV here too!!
Rating: 7 / 10 (doubled the weights considering the importance of this factor)
[BREAK=Conclusion]
Final Word:
Although not perfect,its one of the better service providers that I have used.As of now,I am very happy with the connection and dont plan to
change it any time soon.Maybe a switch in plan is in pipeline for me,but the only gripe that I have against it is that my balance of previous months (around 2.5 GB) cannot be carried forward if there is a change in plan So,I am sticking to this one.
a. Speed - 4 / 5
b. Choice - 4 / 5
c. Cost - 4 / 5
d. Service - 3 / 5
e. Downtimes -7 / 10
Overall - 7 / 10
Suggestions,comments,brickbats welcome Hope this review helped someone in some way or the other Thanks for your time
FiveNetwork is a one of the lesser known providers of BROADBAND Internet access in the Central areas of Mumbai. Currently they are present in Fort, Byculla, Parel, Sewri, Dadar, Wadala, Kings Circle, Matunga, Sion, Koliwada, Antop Hill, Chunabhatti and Ghatkopar.
Local Dealer(Reseller): Weblink (Ghatkopar,Mumbai)
Plan Name: US40C
Plan Details:
750 MB traffic per month (includes downloads/uploads)
11 pm to 9 am Free daily
Sunday 24 hrs free
Bandwidth for the plan: 40 Kbps Officially
Cost: 365 per month (inc. of taxes)
Experience:
I have been using Fivenet for around 7 months now.It wont be wrong if I say that ,overall,I am quite happy with the connection.
As mentioned by PhOeNiX,the service and support is provided by the local cablewala in your area.For me,its Weblink,which provided both Sify
as well as Fivenet connections all over ghatkopar (in mumbai)
Its a PPPoE connection using default windows dialer.
Let me tackle all the important issues one by one:
[BREAK=Speed/Bandwidth]
a. Speed:
Although,my plan offers only 40 kbps officially,I was told at the time of taking connection that it would be a 128 kbps connection.I trusted the guy and wasnt disappointed.The bandwidth provided is uncapped or its an "open pipeline" as they call it
I generally get speeds in excess of 256 kbps and at times,it also reaches 3-4 Mbps :OI say this from experience,when downloading,6 out of 10 times you will get speeds of around 20-30 kBps!I have seen some downloads at over 500 kBps at times..
However,people looking for good upload speeds will be disappointed big time.Even that would be an understatement.I have never seen my upload bandwidth going over 64 kbps.Most of the times its around 50 kbps.But it is good enough to have a voice chat on gtalk (based on my experience)
Also note that the speeds drop a bit between 11 pm to 9 am (when its free),while on sunday it works just great..
Rating: 4 / 5
Check the speed I was getting when I checked it last night:
[BREAK=Choice of Plans]
b. Choice:
The range of plans offered by Fivenet is one of the best I have seen.They have a plan for all types of users.You can know more about it at:
BROADBAND PLANS
As with plans of other providers,the balance "download" left at the end of the month gets forwarded to the next month.One minor flaw (if I can call it) is that for "limited download" plans,a switch from one plan to another results in all your balance getting lost.So be careful before you select the plan of your choice.
Rating: 4 / 5
[BREAK=Cost]
c. Cost:
There was no extra installation charge levied on me.I was just charged for the cable from my home till the terrace of my building.
I am charged 325 + S.T (~365) for US40C.I am quite satisfied with my current plan.However from my observation,the charges for all plans are competitely priced.
Rating: 4 / 5
[BREAK=Service/Support]
d. Service/Support:
Its been a mixed bag so far.I think it wont be fair to make a decision on basis of this point as this is going to vary from provider to provider (Local cablewala)
Fivenet is not very popular in our area.It caters to around 20% of the total users in ghatkopar.As such,the support staff is relatively small in number.According to me,Weblink has not more than 3-4 technical people for providing support.Remember,YMMV
One slightly annoying thing is that you have to inform them to renew your account at the end of every month (as its a prepaid connection).Ok..To be fair,you can even send a mail to the admin in advance asking him to renew it on whicheve date you want.But its not possible to renew the account after 12 am for obvious reasons.So either you end up paying for only 29 days or you do not get to use the service after 12 am on the last day!
Rating: 3 / 5
[BREAK=Downtimes]
e. Downtimes:
One of the most (if not the most) important criteria when selecting a new connection.As mentioned earlier,I have been using it since 7
months.I havent had much problems as far as down times are concerned.
I had a major issue with a down time somewhere around August when my non-working connection was not restored for more than a week despite of repeated complaints.I had later learnt that the support staff was working a major upgrade at that time.But this is definitely not an excuse NOT to restore a connection for as many days as they did.Eventually,the problem was sorted out.
Since then,I havent faced any major issues wrt downtimes.Once in a while (around once a month) it goes down for a few hours randomly,but
its not much, to be honest.Not to mention,they generally shut their connections in case of lightning accompanying heavy rains.
Once again,most of the things highlighted in this point are related directly to the local cablewala.So,YMMV here too!!
Rating: 7 / 10 (doubled the weights considering the importance of this factor)
[BREAK=Conclusion]
Final Word:
Although not perfect,its one of the better service providers that I have used.As of now,I am very happy with the connection and dont plan to
change it any time soon.Maybe a switch in plan is in pipeline for me,but the only gripe that I have against it is that my balance of previous months (around 2.5 GB) cannot be carried forward if there is a change in plan
So,I am sticking to this one.a. Speed - 4 / 5
b. Choice - 4 / 5
c. Cost - 4 / 5
d. Service - 3 / 5
e. Downtimes -7 / 10
Overall - 7 / 10
Suggestions,comments,brickbats welcome
Hope this review helped someone in some way or the other Thanks for your time 
