Review of Airtel Broadband

I am using Airtel Broadband for more then a Year now and have used all of their plans, 256 kbps, 512 kbps as well as 1 Mbps in the last 1 year (all unlimited). Right now I am using 1 Mbps plan of Airtel (unlimited) and BSNL 256 kbps Unlimited.

Here is my Review of Airtel Broadband

Good Things about Airtel Broadband

1. Airtel has the Best support I have seen among all the broadband service providers in India. I have used Airtel, BSNL ,Tata Indicom and Sify so far in 2 different cities. You can make a call to their support at 2 in the night (I have done this twice!) and I have got reply from them. They have send their employee to fixed the problem in 24 hours where as with BSNL and tata indicom, I have never got such prompt support. In short, Airtel has the best "last mile" support.

2. Minimum Downtime of Service - In comparison to Tata Indocom, I will say I have seen very little downtime with airtel. Infact in 12 months, the broadband had barely stopped working 6 times (for 3 to 6 hours due to server problem). My BSNL broadband has got more down times then Airtel one and Tata indicom was the worst. I will not even talk about sify etc.

3. No Router Problem - I have seen all the second tier broadband service providers as well as Tata Indicom's Routers to stop responding after some time. For example, Many broadband providers routers suddenly stops responding after continuously being used for 8 to 12 hours, I have seen this specially with Tata indicom's routers but with Airtel, I have never seen such problem. I have continuously used the Airtel Broadband for 3 days and it never stopped working.

4. In terms of speed, it was always according to the plan though to be fair to others, I can say the same about others too. Many local broadband providers and those who provide broadband by cable often gives speed well below what promised but we can safely say its not true about Airtel.

Now these were the good things,

Bad Things about Airtel Broadband

1. DNS issues - I have seen people reporting about Airtel DNS issue that it fails to resove i.e. Many sites don't open in Airtel. I have never seen such problem with it but I know it exists. This DNS issue is a problem with BSNL too as it fails to open many sites. Though this problem can easily be solved by using Open DNS.

2. Upload speed being higher then download speed - I have seen many times Airtel Upload speed being way higher then download speed. So on my 512 kbps plan I was getting 200 kbps download and 300 kbps upload speed which was unacceptable by every means as I wanted the best possible download speed (why will I want a higher upload speed?). Anyway such problems can be resolved by rebooting the system.

3. Need to reboot Router after power failure - Another minor problem with airtel was I had to reboot the router after every power failure as it stops working. Though its not a big thing and I know this is a hardware problem, not something which you can associate with airtel broadband.

4. No night plans - I am just wondering why don't Airtel has any night plan like BSNL where you can download unlimited files at 2 mbps speed ? or may be because I am already on unlimited plan hence I won't get that 2 mbps speed in the night ? anyway it will be nice if Airtel can also offer BSNL like plans in the night.

Overall Rating of Airtel Broadband

1. Speed - 8/10
2. Support - 9.5/10
3. Reliability - 9/10
4. Quality of Service - 9/10

In comparison to BSNL and Tata Indicom, I will say, go with Airtel which overall has to be the best Broadband Service provider in India.