I am an Airtel Broadband customer for the past 2 months. My experiences have so far been very good.

          

Originally

I intended to go with BSNL broadband since they came cheaper. I applied to BSNL online...made at least 30 calls to their offices...went and visited them...and wasted a lot of my time, effort and petrol. Typical government organization that!

An airtel exec called me one evening to tell me that a connection is available in my location (The first time I contacted Airtel 2 weeks before this, I was told that they do not have an available port in my location and would let me know if anything comes up). He came to my house the next day morning, we got the formalities done, and I got my connection in 2 days as promised.

So far I have been a very satisfied customer. The connection has never gone down. Airtel customer support has always been very responsive. (I have had one issues with VPN connection to my office network. Airte was able to quickly resolve it)

Here is something which I find strange though:
 
I am supposed to get 2 Mbps broadband speed (725 combo plan). When I check using Airtel speed tester, it gives me a result close to 2 Mbps download speed and 875 kbps upload speed. When I test using a 3rd party speed tester, it gives me less than 500 kbps download ALWAYS. I understand that 3rd party speed testing usually show lower speed, but why such a big difference? When I try downloading applications (from Yahoo or Microsoft websites), the download speed has never gone above 450 kbps.

Airtel support tells me that 2 Mbps bandwidth actually means 512 kbps "download speed". 512 kbps bandwidth boils down to 64 kbps download speed. I find that hard to digest.

          

Cost is clightly higher compared to BSNL. My 725 combo plan comes to 

   725
+ 49 modem rental (I purchased a wireless router. There is an option to rent wireless router in addition)
+ tax
= Rs 870

This, being a combo plan, has 150 local calls free,which I hardly use. I haven’t though of unlimited plans since my usage is limited.


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Update!

I called up customer support on the same day I posted this review and registered a complaint (again). Got a call back the next day. This guy asked me to download an application from microsoft site, and it downloaded at 2 Mbps !!  He says he didn’t change anything...hmm.

So when you compare with BSNL (I don’t know much about the other broadband providers to comment on them):

BSNL                                                    Airtel
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1. Cheaper                                              Costlier
2. Pathetic customer service               Excellent customer service
3. Excellent speed                                 Excellent speed
4. Need to wait 2-3 months                  Usually ready in a few days.
(in Bangalore) to get a connection

Purchase Price (INR):

725 (725 combo plan)