Jun 05, 2012 03:31 PM
4978 Views
(Updated Jun 06, 2012 07:44 PM)
Ever since I shifted to Thane, I was always on the lookout for a decent high speed internet service provider.
I tried the MTNL broadband (wired) connection which was really good in the beginning. I used to get download speeds of up to 250 kbps (on a connection speed of 1MBps) and the pricing was also very competitive. Alas, after a few months the performance went down drastically. I tried to get it sorted out through their service centre but as many of us would have found out, MTNL customer service has a massive scope for improvement, to say the least!
I finally gave up and started looking for a wireless option, since I keep shuttling between Chembur and Thane. My friends didn't have any good experiences using Reliance and Tata Indicom, so I decided to try out Vodafone Netcruise. This was mainly because I am quite satisfied with my Vodafone mobile connection and I was naive enough to assume that they might be equally competent in the wireless USB modem department as well.
This “ass”umption was soon going to make an as s of myself. Anyway, in good faith, I went and brought the Netcruise USB stick (mobile no. 8433010448). It’s plug ‘n’ play and it installed within a few minutes and was up and running. It comes with a software that shows connection speed statistics. Imagine my happiness when the software showed download speeds of 300 and 400 kbps! But wait, why is my file taking so long to download at such high speeds? My happiness was short-lived when I saw the “actual” download speed in Google Chrome. The attached screenshot below tells the whole.
The “statistics” in the Netcruise software shows a download speed of 84 kbps whereas the Google chrome download speed is only 7 kbps. Note that this is the only file being downloaded, no other network activity or download is occurring simultaneously, so whatever download speed shown is only for this file.
This 5 MB file actually took 11 mins to download, so the figures shown in Chrome are correct and those in "Statistics" are definitely misguiding.
As can be seen in the same screenshot, I am getting very low download speeds.
Vodafone claims to provide download speeds of upto 3.1 MBps !
I understand that various factors like number of users, network traffic etc. affect the download speeds and it would be naïve of me to expect anything close to even 1Mbps.
I would be satisfied even if I got a paltry 300kbps! But 20 kbps?? That’s not “high speed broadband” by any stretch of imagination.
I immediately sent my problem to their customer care ( 1-April-2012 ) along with an email.
One would think that Vodafone customer care would do a good job solving my problem. Wrong again! All I got was a few follow-up calls and an empty assurance that my problem will be solved.
I am still waiting.
