Oct 24, 2004 10:45 PM
3766 Views
(Updated Jun 23, 2005 06:53 PM)
Iqara is a fully owned subsidiary of the UK based BG Group. BG (British Gas) a well known company in field of the Energy operating in several countries including India. Iqara a wholly owned subsidiary of BG currently operates only in India and Brazil. In India they are in 10 cities and corporate base is at Surat.
I am using Iqara since June-04 and main reason for choosing Iqara is the Technology and Management support from BG. Second important reason is in Vadodara it is cheaper than any other cable connection.
Cable connection is always faster than telephone lines at least in our country irrespective of landline provider. Initially I opted for Iqara limited MB (100) connection however I consumed first 100 MB in just 4 days so limited connection proved to be a costly affair if consumption rate is high. This may be the case with most of MS members because most of the time we are glued to it. However, speed is good and almost no down time. Because of high cost decided to explore other options and that is unlimited broadband connection with monthly renewal fees.
Unlimited Plan from Iqara: - Iqara has two options
Delight Plan : Monthly Unlimited 64 Kbps Plan
Comfort Plan : Monthly Unlimited 40 Kbps Plan
Option two is cheaper. I pay Rs.880 per month for unlimited access. Please note, rates are different from place to place. Vadodara and Vizag may be cheapest among all the cities. Incase of Iqara Comfort one has to pay Rs.4500/- as installation charge + cost of modem. Cost of modem is refundable. All these transactions are being done by their selling agent.
Installation ?
Iqara uses software of WinPoET and PC requires a LAN card. Software guy from Iqara installs software of WinPoET. My PC is having duel system ? Win 98 & Win 2000. With win 98, WinPoET work very well without any effort. However Iqara man could not make it work with Win 2000. With 2000 it worked only after installing SP-4 and some setting changes with the help of the IT man from my factory. I do not have any experience of its compatibility with Win XP.
Renewal ?
Get a call from the selling agent without fail 4-5 days in advance. Pay the money to get the renewal coupon. Go to the Iqara site and renew with help of pin number. It?s simple and fast.
Connectivity ?
I am using Iqara comfort that is 40 Kbps unlimited plan. It is really good. More important is almost nil down time. 64 Kbps may be much better.
I used to spend about Rs. 2500/- per month when I was using landline for internet connection and listening online music was a dream. Today with this connection downloading huge files or listening on line music is not at all expensive. Monthly renewal fees of Rs. 880/- takes care of everything. Downloading video clips also does not take much time. Real Player works without interruption.
Personal experience ?
Response of selling agent is pretty good but response of technical team of Iqara is extremely pathetic. Attitude of people who are responsible for ground connection is extremely bad ? few lethargic guys who do not have any value for time. Iqara management should look into it for their survival in this competitive market. Minimum 15 times I have talked to them on phone for getting connection. Every time some soft spoken smart lady gives a new date and time for giving connection but none turns up. After trying more than three weeks my better half fired all those staff in their office in presence of many other customers.
Connection process started after that and it took more than 3 days which should not have taken more than 4-5 hours. Anyway we got the connection and fortunately in my area it is very stable. Only once in last four months it broke down due to heavy rain and storm. On the other hand their software guys are prompt and ready to help.
Initially lot of patience is required to get the Iqara connection. You have to be really cool if you are a net-addict. After initial setbacks life is good because of speed and uninterrupted connection. Above all at a very reasonable cost.
Seasons Greetings
Update: - 1 May 2005
Ultimately I got rid of it mainly because of very poor service. Now my wife is struggling to get refund for the modem.
Started using broadband of Tata Indicom since one week. Very quick service - let me hope for the best.
