Unlimited wireless internet has become almost a myth in India. Except state-owned BSNL, no other companies are offering ‘True’ unlimited data on any wireless connection. Please correct me if I’m wrong. You might have seen many so-called ‘unlimited’ plans available on 3G or other wireless connections. However, if you dig a little bit, you will notice how ISPs are misusing the ‘unlimited’ term to lure customers.
In reality, no plans are unlimited, your speed will be throttled after consuming a certain amount of data. It will become impossible to use internet at this reduced speed. This throttled speed varies from ISP to ISP. While some reduce it to 72 Kbps, some even make worse by limiting to 32 Kbps that is even lower than speed of ancient dial-up connection!
In reality for the sake of ‘unlimited’ plans you are actually getting limited data plans. While these limited plans might be suitable for some users, but, if you are a heavy internet user like me, you will be disappointed.
I started using BSNL EVDOconnection almost five years ago when 3G was not so popular as today. There were very few wireless internet service providers ( Tata and Reliance) and those companies were using CDMA 1X connection at that time. The reason why I switched toBSNL EVDO was mainly because of the true unlimited data plan they were offering for Rs 750/month, which was a decent price considering the unlimited data. This is a long-term review of BSNL EVDO service. BSNL EVDO Speed test:
Let’s talk about the main part that is the internet speed. I have a ZTE AC8700 modem which is a CDMA2000 EVDO Rel. 0 modem. It supports maximum 2.4 Mbps download speed and 153 kbps upload speed on EVDO network and maximum speed of 153.6 on the CDMA2000 1X network. This is actually an older generation modem. BSNL started rolling out faster Rev. A network that now offers 3.1 Mbps download speed and 1.8 Mbps upload speed. My testing is based on an older generation modem so the performance will be affected by the hardware limitations. This modem works on both 32 bit & 64 bit Windows and Linux operating systems.
I was using the same modem for last five years and fortunately the speed is constant till today. Unlike other networks which has become slower ( both MTS MBlaze and Airtel 3G are now slower here) . Most of the time I get around 1-1.2 Mbps download speed. That is good enough for surfing the internet and streaming videos on YouTube at 360p or 480p resolution. The download speed is mostly stable except some occasional connection hiccups which happens a few times a month. Sometimes the speed goes up to 1.5 Mbps but it never crossed 2 Mbps at my place. Internet Download Manager ( IDM) is recommended to achieve the maximum download speed.
