Bad broadband services in India

I have been using BSNL DataOne broadband service from past 5-6 years. Though the connectivity and the promised speed is up to the mark, once the problem starts there is no end to it. I have had my own set of problems with BSNL in the year 2009, 2010 and now in the year 2011. 

In the year 2009, I didn't have the internet connection for a complete 3 months, though the phone service was still available. The line man and the in-charge officer kept making me go here and there for nearly 3 months before changing a single cable from the telephone pole coming into the house connecting the telephone instrument which solved the broadband problem. That was not all, I was also forced to buy a new modem because both the line man and the in-charge officer told me that the problem was with the modem for which I spent an extra Rs. 1000. A wise one might ask why I didn't change the operator when I had problem for 3 long months. The reason is simple. I didn't have an option. I was, at that time, was staying in a central government quarters and no other operators except BSNL may operate there!! Anyway the drama ended after 10-11 manual/telephone complaints, 5 emails sent to higher officials, 1 written complaint and couple of fights.

The second set of problems started in the year 2010 when I shifted my house from North Bangalore to South Bangalore. I didn't have the internet as well as phone connection from BSNL for a total 7 months. The reason for not giving the connection was simple though silly - BSNL was running short of telephone cables. Of course I was not charged for the connection during the time but imagine amount of trouble I was in. I was again left with no option but to go for a costlier yet slower connection from Tata WiMax. The service from Tata wasn't good. Though I used to get the promised speed, hardly did the internet stay connected for a long time. Whenever the internet got disconnected, I'd to either wait for hours to get the connection back or call up the customer care to reset the connection. I'd also bought a static IP since I was told that the above mentioned problem could get solved by the use of a static IP!!! Nah... that didn't help either. So at last when the BSNL connection was provided at the end of 7th month after my shift to Bangalore South, I switched back to DataOne. Though there were intermittent disconnection due to various reasons I was quite happy with the connection and the download/upload speed of the DataOne connection till 2 months back when the problem resurfaced.

The 3rd set of problems with BSNL started on one of those fateful days in the month of May when there was heavy rainfall in Bangalore. For a day phone went dead, but came back alive on the 2nd day. The DataOne connection which stopped working then, still doesn't. For a few days the problem was complete disconnection. And now the problem is that the connection exists only during day-time and in the evening and in the night, the internet doesn't work!! I guess I need not have to re-explain all the problems that comes with the disconnection - n number of complaints, cost incurred to travel/complain for the DataOne problem correction!!

I did some basic research on the next best available WiFi broadband connection since along with my computer I'd also wanted the connection to be available in parallel to 3-4 smart phones and a laptop. So I ended up with the Tata Photon WiFi which promised a download speed of up to 3.1MBPS and upload speed up to 1MBPS. When I test the speed for the Tata Photon WiFi on speedtest.net, it shows download speed anywhere between 0.5MBPS to 1.2MBPS and upload speed anywhere between 0.2MBPS to 0.4MBPS. So much for having paid Rs. 6400.00/- for the WiFi modem and monthly rental of Rs. 1500.00/-. And yesterday when I called up the Tata Photon Customer Care I came to know that the CC agents are not even well versed with the technology. One of the Tata Photon CC guys who spoke with me asked me to re-install all the modem drivers and then check for the connection even after telling him a couple of times that I am connecting to the internet through LAN!

Well, many of my friends have always praised Airtel broadband connection for their customer support and almost 100% uptime. But call it bad luck or whatever, wherever I go Airtel doesn't follow me! :( I haven't tried Reliance since it has a mixed feelings about it from the group of friends of mine who are using it.

The conclusion is that the customers (aam aadmi or the Mango People) are always taken for a ride by these big companies. For this reason and only this reason I wish I was in some developed country to enjoy the full broadband speed!!! Alas!!!

Browser usage - Chrome and IE

It is nearly 3 years since Chrome the web browser from Google was launched and my experience with it has always been excellent. Though IE has been predominantly used at office for intranet sites, I mainly use Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome for browsing the net. I especially use Firefox if I need to download anything!

I have the habit of checking the "Audience" of my sites - the country from which majority of people are browsing my articles and what OS & browsers they use. Till recently it was IE that was the leader. Around 60% of the viewers of my site used to use IE, a little around 20% used to use Firefox and the rest other browsers. Today I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that the majority of my site users are using Chrome. For a minute I couldn't believe it. The reason being that just a few weeks back it was IE which was the dominant browser and from nowhere has Chrome taken up a major chunk of IE users.

Check the below data from Google stats available for my blog.

Pageviews by Browsers

Chrome 585 (32%) Internet Explorer 546 (30%) Firefox 512 (28%) Safari 88 (4%) Opera 46 (2%) chromeframe 7 (<1%) Jakarta Commons-HttpClient 6 (<1%) Mobile Safari 5 (<1%) Java 4 (<1%) Version 3 (<1%)

I guess Google's advertisement for Chrome has really helped in increasing the market share. Here is the advertisement for Chrome which is aired in India.

Though Chrome and Firefox are closely competing with IE, Microsoft Windows operating systems are still ruling the world!!

Pageviews by Operating Systems

Windows 1,595 (89%) Macintosh 80 (4%) Linux 45 (2%) Other Unix 34 (1%) Android 7 (<1%) iPad 4 (<1%) iPhone 4 (<1%) Nokia 3 (<1%) SAMSUNG 3 (<1%) iPod 2 (<1%)

So I opine that in coming months Chrome shall surely overtake all the other browsers by a major percentage of users going for it. But IE or no IE, Microsoft Windows surely rules the OS world -as of now!!!

Update: Here is an article published at ZDNet - "Chrome takes bite out of IE's share" and "Chrome rises at IE's expense; iPad makes a showing".