Broadband atlast!. Review on MTNL Triband ADSL

Well, firstly THANKFULLY we now have broadband - at last!

MTNL service is quite bad. I applied to Triband, the day the first ad flashed in the newspapers. But I received a call from our MTNL guys in MAY 2005. I purchased my own Linksys router (wireless connectivity within home + 4 ethernet ports). Well, this meant that I had to configure the router pretty much on my own, with trial and error. The MTNL guy (a Patel, who had just come back from his vacation) was helpful but of no use (clueless technically). he called me later to understand how I managed to configure the system.

Finally, after much tinkering around, got the damn thing to work. Am pleasantly surprised to see that the promised speeds are a reality. Now, laze around in the house and access the Internet using my laptop that has Wi-Fi.

Speeds are fantastic! Internet Radio/TV play beautifully. Blazing downloads. Am sure, the service is going to be pathetic (with untrained MTNL staff), and 'sad' MTNL call centre ladies. But, while the service am not complaining. Perhaps it was worth the wait. It's OS agnostic. all settings are in the router; all u do is start the PC/laptop and the machine obtains the IP address automatically from the router (192.168.1.xx) using DHCP. Meanwhile, the router would be connected to the MTNL gateway.

Had previously been a user of Ethernet based Internet provided by cable guy - Unreliable, expensive, slow.

To check the veracity of the speed claims made by MTNL; ran a speed test (us.mcafee.com/root/speedometer/default.asp). The result showed 212.Kbps (ie, 27 KBps). To provide an example a dial up connection will rarely go beyond 40 Kbps.