Jan 18, 2003 02:09 PM
3924 Views
(Updated Jan 18, 2003 02:09 PM)
I am sure most of us in metros have shifted to or are planning for alternatives to the dial-up internet connections. But the alternatives are not as exciting as one would like. Most cable TV operators give internet access to their customers via a LAN setup in the area. They generally buy their own bandwidth and then distribute is over the LAN.
However, the main drawback of these is that they never deliver what they promise. At first the speeds are good, (A good is a 5.5Kb/s here), but soon they start capping the bandwidth, leaving you with less then what you were getting over a dial-up. Calling them is no use as they will improve the speeds when u call and then reduce it soon after.
I has a similar experience and then I switched to Sify Broadband. The setup is similar here. You still have to deal with the local cable operator who manages the LAN in the area, but he has no control over the bandwidths. All he does is ensures the network is running fine. There is a wireless receiver from which bandwidth is supplied to the LAN. So all the middle man does here is maintain the LAN.
Speeds are good, obviously nowhere close to real broadband but they deliver more than what they promise. They advertise a speeds between 48kbps to 64kbps and for the last two months I have been getting more than 80Kbps.
The only problem is that because of the wireless nature of the system there short periods when the connection seems dead, wait a couple of minutes and try again and u r in business.
They do however block net2phone and dialpad so if you want to use voice telephony you have to use way2talk (Satyams voice telephony card).
