Plug2Surf (if you have the patience!). Review on Tata Indicom - Surf 3000

The other reviewers are absolutely correct about the slooow speed of this nifty-looking black USB modem. I purchased it for Rs.2850 plus Rs.100 for the SIM card. I had to visit their office on Richmond Road in Bangalore twice, and make at least 10 phone calls to their "customer service" dept. to ascertain if their signal did reach my house which is about 2 km as the crow flies from the Indicom cell tower.

Since I was in a hurry to get an internet connection, I finally called one of their sales agents who was referred to me. He brought his Indicom cellphone with him and showed me that it had max reception. Based on this I decided to sign up and filled out the postpaid service contract. Installation is indeed as easy as loading a mini CD onto your PC. One can even set the Windows dialler to automatically dialup instead of clicking on the  Tata Indicom / Sungil Telecom icon and waiting for it to initialize before you can click on "connect". I chose the 5 GB up & download plan which costs Rs. 1500 per month. This is the largest data plan they have on their website and pamphlet.

The sales staff do not carry demo units anymore as per the customer care dept. NO wonder! If people really saw that even simple web pages like gmail take at least 20 seconds to load, they'd flat refuse to by it! However the onscreen dialler does show a full signal, and the connection itself rarely needs to be redialled even after marathon 10 hour web sessions. I too was assured by a "technical help" person at their Hyderabad call center that I would get constant download speeds of "20- 40 kbps", but the maximum I've seen is a constant 10kbps and that too for about an hour or so, after which it slowed down even further to average 3-4 kbps. At that speed, you really need to have a lot of spare time on your hands!

And yes, wherever there's a Tata Indicam CDMA network you'll be able to use it to surf. But forget about trying to surf Google Earth or flash-heavy sites or those sites which open in 1 endlessly-scrolling page rather than easier-to-load page segments that allow you to click forward bit by bit. Facebook is one of those sites which is best avoided while using this Plug2Surf Whiz USB modem!

However, after 3 weeks of usage and gradual disappointment, I got a

call today from a Tata Indicom rep who said that I was "over my 1.5GB"

plan and would be charged Rs.2 per MB thereafter. When I asked to speak

with her supervisor, the line was cut off and no one called me

thereafter. The rep who had filled out most of my order form in writing

claimed that I had asked for the 1.5GB plan which costs Rs.900/month,

whereas I had actually asked for the 5GB plan for Rs.1500/mth. He said

that in the next billing cycle my plan would be upgraded, but I'll be

stuck with a bill much bigger than Rs.900 by the end of the month,

based on my usage pattern so far.

Wish I'd delayed this purchase until something better like WIMAX got setup in Bangalore. Reliance I hear is providing unlimited GB at 300kbps for Rs.999/mth but I'll wait a couple of months and talk to some actual users before I commit.

UPDATE - 11 Dec.'07

Now it's been almost 2 and a half months since I got this modem, and I'm rather frustrated now! For the second time now, my internet connection has been cut off for over a day! And that too for ridiculous reasons offered by Tata Indicom! A lady from their Credit dept. called me around Dec. 8th and said that "I was over my credit limit, hence I'll have to make a payment in order to continue surfing". I patiently explained to her that I was signed up for the 5GB upload+download monthly plan, which costs me Rs. 1500/mth.

Now I was pretty sure that with the sloow speed of this modem, and also what I'd downloaded during the month, that I hadn't even reached 2 or 3 GB from November 8th to Dec. 8th, hence why is my connection shut off? It had indeed been disabled on their end by 8th Dec., a couple of days after that call. So this lady told me that they had a credit limit of Rs.3000 on my acct. and I had exceeded that.

I told her to see how much data I had transferred and then see if that even reached what I was paying for(5GB) anyway on my service plan. She said she didn't have that information. I demanded my rights as a customer to NOT be inconvenienced like this just because they didn't see what service plan I was on before thoughtlessly turning off my connection! They of all people should realise how important an internet connection is for both personal and professional life!

I had made both my monthly payments so far long before the due date mentioned in the online statement. So what is this policy of theirs of considering just their normal rate for data usage(rather than correlating to the service plan chosen by the customer such as 1GB, 1.5GB, 5GB per month etc.) and harassing their customers and cutting off their connections? If they had checked their records they would have seen that I had barely used 2 or 3 GB of my monthly 5GB plan, costing Rs.1500. In other words, I was nowhere near the Rs.3000 credit limit that had been arbitrarily assigned to me.

After a long conversation with a patient and understanding manager named Mercy at Indicom's Hyderabad call-center, in which I explained my urgent desire to have my dialup wireless net account re-activated, the connection was indeed restored and Mercy even called me back to confirm that she had requested a rush reactivation.  So it's good that some nice Indicom employees are quite helpful, although the company's credit dept. and the policies they work under are ridiculous.

I can't wait for a landline or WIMAX alternative to come to my area in Bangalore so that I can end my frustration with Gmail's inbox taking 30 seconds to load, and wasted time waiting for all other pages to load, and pictures, attachments and videos taking extremely long to download as well. I think that Indicom is tarnishing their reputation as a Tata company with their CDMA wireless internet service, along with VSNL, another Tata firm.

Please choose this product and service ONLY if there are truly no other Landine Broadband/ CDMA/ GPRS/ WIMAX internet providers with healthy network signals in your area. That is, if you use this for home desktop PC use, rather than mobile laptop use. The collective frustration is mounting and at this rate they are bound to lose their high-paying customers soon.

The only winner here is not Tata or we the users.rather it is Sungil Telecom and the other manufacturers/ importers of these CDMA USB(Rs.2850) and Data Card modems. After people cancel their Indicom service, these modems will collect dust  and cannot be returned for any refund. They will be consigned to the trash heap of technological obsolescence.