Reliance Wimax Bangalore. Review on Reliance Wi-Max

I would like to share my  endeavors with reliance Wimax since Jan 2008.

My Internet Usage :  I am an avid Gamer and play many multi player Games like CS on Steam, DOTA on GG , AOC on Hamachi & IGZ. I too download a lot of data from torrents.  Also I got two friends - one of whom works from home very frequently , and other is also an avid gamer. So I need reliable, less latency and high bandwidth Internet Connection. We have Desktop as well as laptops and a router.

My previous experience of other ISPs :  I had Airtel 256 &later 512 kbps unlimited connection in Koramangala, which worked pretty fine. Airtel got wonder customercare and they used to cater my call at 12.00 Midnight and fix it in 4 hours..and max 8 hours in case of fixing physical faults.

Current experience:

I shifted my place to NGEF layout only to find that the area doesnt have any landine internet connection , and all ISPs promising to provide one "next "1 month. The "next" always remain next whether its Airtel or BSNL.

So I decided to try Reliance Internet connection desite all the bad reviews here. I m writing one, so that people just dont reviews when they are unhappy, but also when they are satisfied. So applied for Reliance Wimax  in December end, and got it within a fortnight.

INSTALLATION: A Miracle

The Reliance has outsourced the Installation process to a third party vendor which knows seldom about general installation and has mugged their training program limited to very few scenarios. Install the antenna on roof top and plz dont cribble to put it in balcony. When they place the antenna you would require a laptop to test better signal strength;else if one person sits in room and other at rooftop putting antenna, there gonna be problem. Lastly learn what they are doing, and how checking the strength; as they dont carry any custom device which does that and so you can do it too(if needed later).

CUSTOMER CARE: Closes the complaint ASAP, without reading the contents or informing customer.

Next I opted for an unlimited Plan and it worked fine for first two months. Then from Feb end , the upload  bandwidth become bare minimum toabout <1 kbps. Called up service centre regrading the problem only to find out that my previous complaint had been closed unilaterally and they give me a fresh complaing referrence number. This didnt get resolve and then happened the fible optics cut in Egypt. Now everything blamed on the cut whatsoever be the real cause. After getting 8 new complaint referrence numbers, I finally lodged a complaint regarding unilateral closing of complaints without asking/informing customer after talking to a senior guy(God knows it was a lie ). It too was closed without informing me. I stopped spending my pennies on cutomer care calls further.

Finally I got a call from a field engineer (How ?? God knows!!!), and he told that Reliance is having server upgrades and some issues in upload servers.

In April beginning, Net was back to normal , only differnce I had stripped down from 600 kbps to 300 kbps because of anger for whetever happened above.

INTERNET CONNECTION :  Get an unlimited to avoid customer care regarding billing faults if any

when I had 600 kbps connection I used to get download speeds of 580 - 1500 kbps in day & night and upload speeds of 250-600 kbps. Its good for you to join any multiplayer game, but to host it might be a problem. Connection is login based but u can always map your MAC address to router, so you can always share the connection. As I can make out from bills, that a single session cant be longer than 24 hours; I can attribute this reason for  a disconnection if you have left your comp on for more than  a day. CustomerCare is too dumb to give you a good reason for this.

Now I got 300kbps connection , and getting downloading speeds of 300-600 kbps and upload speeds of 250-300 kbps.

Latency is not bad and you can manage ~120 in CS steam (Computer is not the limiting factor). Network is relaible and doesnt disconnect when u dont want.

My friend has taken Sify Wifi card which doesnt work as good as mine Wimax.

At the end of the day, I am satisfied with the quality of Reliance Wimax, but unhappy with the people working in customer care.

Landline is better than Wireless anytime but it really need guts to venture early into a market. Some people might it term it unpreparedness, but Wimax is the future of Technology. Airtel is watching and having trials for wimax, while people like me are thankful to Reliance for the Internet connection.

I would late overall Airtel as the best available in India, then Reliance ahead of others. There are service providers like Exatnet who got lesser number of hops and hence lesser latency for games, but they got very limited wired coverage.

Thanks,

Ranjan