Guide to Broadband ISPs in Hyderabad

Kindly note that offers and tariffs are subject to change from time to time. Please visit the website or contact the Customer Care of the particular ISP to find out about the availability and the latest tariffs. Also if you work for some well known company (Infosys, Orcale, etc.), you might be eligible for special discounts.

Criteria while choosing Broadband ISPs

Selecting the right ISP is often a headache. This article to supposed to provide a guide for someone planning to take a broadband ISP. It explains what criteria should be taken into account while choosing a broadband ISP, makes you familiar with some internet jargon and some methods by which you can be sure you are getting what you are supposed to get. It also provides review of some broadband ISPs in Hyderabad. Most of the content written here is based on personal experiences and feedback from others.

As a net savvy person, I have spent quite some time experimenting with broadband ISPs and trying to understand what criteria should be taken into account while taking a broadband ISP. Below are some of the things which have to be considered while taking an ISP.

1. Choose a bigger ISP (Internet Service Provider) rather than a local distributor
2. Choose bandwidth (connection speed) depending upon your usage and make sure you get the promised speed
3. Choose unlimited / volume based plans based upon your usage and look for flexibility in plans
4. Look for consistent speeds and low downtime
5. Look for good Customer Service
6. Cost
7. Other considerations
i. Public and/or Static IP
ii. Router
iii. Compatibily with software you intend to use
iv. Integrated Services
v. Authentication via browser

For an elaborate description for each of the above criteria please browse to the section titled "Detailed explanation of the criteria for choosing a broadband ISP".

Review of some Broadband ISPs in Hyderabad

Now that I have listed the criteria to consider before taking a broadband ISP connection, I shall proceed to give information about some of the ISPs in Hyderabad. I shall order them in descending order of their overall rating according to me. Kindly note that the below info provided is based on my experiences, the information provided by some acquaintances and hence is accurate to the best of my knowledge.

1. Airtel

Website: http://airtelbroadband.in/

Ph: 44444121

Plans: http://airtelbroadband.in/tariff/tariff.htm

Connection Details: The download and upload speeds are around 85%. Speeds are consistent and down times are also low.

Customer Service: Very Good.

Other Considerations: Public IP used for all plans. Free static IP seems to be provided for some really expensive plans. The site also provides music downloads, online tests, etc. They generally provide a free phone with their broadband plan.

2. Tata Indicom

Website: http://www.tataindicombroadband.com

Ph: 60607070

Plans:
Prepaid - http://www.tataindicombroadband.in/access/prepaid/order/tariff_10_cities.html
Postpaid - http://www.tataindicombroadband.in/access/postpaid/order/tariff_top10.html

Connection Details: Both the download speed and upload speed are more than 90% of the promised bandwidth. The speeds are consistent and there is hardly any downtime.

Customer Service: Good.

Other considerations: Public IP used for all plans. For all post-paid connections, you are given a free router and a free static IP. Tata Indicom broadband users are eligible for a number of value added services such as movie downloads, music downloads, games, personality tests, net telephony, free roaming dial-up etc.

3. DataOne (Broadband connection by BSNL)

Ph: 1600-424-1600

Website: http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone.htm

Plans: http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone_tariff.htm
The prices offered by DataOne are perhaps the cheapest of all the ISPs.

Connection Details: Download speed test showed 90% of the promised speed. Downtimes are low.

Customer Care: Poor. As long as you don't have any special requirement or don't face any problem, it is fine. But once you face any problem, it may take quite an effort to get the ISP to fix the problem.

Other Considerations: Public IP used for all plans.

4. You Tele (formerly Iqara)

Ph: 9866077898

Website: http://www.youtele.com/

Plans: http://www.youtele.com/new_html1/html/homeuser/homeuser_plans.php

Connection Details: Upload and download speeds are about 80% of the promised speed. The speeds are consistent and the downtimes are generally low.

Customer Service: Average

Other considerations: No router is provided by default. Few unlimited plans have the availability for static IP. Iqara also provides the facility to pay bills online. Net telephony is another feature of Iqara.

4. Hathway

Ph: 55831313

Website: http://www.hathway.com

Plans: http://www.hathway.com

Connection Details: Upload and download speeds are around 75% of the promised speed. Downtimes are reasonably low. In case there is a problem in a line, it is generally fixed immediately.

Customer Service: Not that great. I faced some real headache with the customer care. I had to call them up 3-4 times even for simple requests such as bill statement.

Other considerations: No router is provided by default. Few plans have the availability for static IP. One major problem with Hathway when I was using it (in 2006) was that even though they give free static IP they blocked all the incoming ports at the gateway level. Therefore it was not possible to host my own server. I had to pay a refundable deposit of Rs.15000 in order to have these ports opened.

5. Beam Cable Systems

Ph: +91-40-5525-9273/74/2332-5886

Website: http://www.beamcablesystem.com/

Plans: http://www.beamcablesystem.com/packages.htm

Connection Details: Speeds are not very consistent but the downtimes are low.

Customer Service: Good

Other Considerations: NA

Detailed explanation of the criteria for choosing a broadband ISP

1. Choose a bigger ISP (Internet Service Provider) rather than a local distributor

I still remember the first ISP I had used (this was around 1999). There weren't many options then. I had taken a local ISP with which needless to say, I had faced numerous problems. After some time, the company went into debts and they closed it.

In order to understand why I do not suggest ISP provided by local distributors, it is necessary to understand how these local distributors operate. The big players in the market are Tata Indicom, Airtel, Iqara, Hathway, etc. (this may not be the complete list). Now what these local distributors do is buy certain amount of bandwidth (I shall describe bandwidth later, for now think of it as the capacity of the connection) from the main ISPs, set up their own infrastructure and redistribute it to households. So if anything goes wrong, the only person we can contact is the local distributor. The main ISP from whom this local distributor has purchased the bandwidth is not accountable for any problems we face because the local distributor is the one providing us the internet. Needless to say, local distributors generally do not have that touch of professionalism nor the kind of infrastructure which the bigger players have. Hence frequent disconnections and low speeds are often complaints from people who have taken connection from local distributors.

The situation is different today. We need not rely on these local distributors anymore. The bigger players like Tata Indicom, Airtel, Iqara, Hathway and Beam have started offering interent directly to households. Local distributors still exist today in areas where there is no coverage of these main ISPs. There are customer care no's for all the above main ISPs. Information about local distributors may be available from your cable TV provider. But I highly recommend you opt for one of the bigger ISPs. In some cases, the local distirbutor may even identify their ISP with the main ISP from which they have purchased bandwidth. But be sure to differentiate the local distributor and the main ISP.

2. Choose bandwidth (connection speed) depending upon your usage and make sure you get the promised speed

Perhaps one of the most crucial factors while buying an ISP is the speed. Note the below points when deciding upon the bandwidth.
i. If you are planning to use internet for e-mail and browsing, bandwidth of 40 Kbps may be sufficient. If you are planning to use internet for voice chat, bandwidth of 64 Kbps would be sufficient for reasonable voice clarity. If you are planning to use interent for watching online videos, a 256 Kbps+ connection is highly recommended.
ii. You should get a speed of atleast 90% of the promised bandwidth i.e. the Download Speed Test and Upload speed test should both show speeds of around 90% of the promised speed.
iii. Before choosing the ISP, it is always a good idea to get feedback about the speed from one of the ISP's customer. If you know the customer well enough, you can even run these downlaod and upload tests at his/her place to get an idea of the speeds.

OK, now I am going to get a bit technical :-) but I'll try to keep it as simple as possible for the novice. This technical jargon is necessary to understand what is meant by bandwidth.

Everything transmitted over the internet is known as data. This data is transmitted in bits (bit is a unit of data just as metre is a unit of distance) . That is when you open a website, data (bits) are transferred from a remote machine to your PC. When you are voice chatting, you hear the other person's voice which means data is transferred from the other person's end to your end. Similarly the other person hears your voice implying data is transferred from your end to the other person' s end. This data is not only represented in bits, but also in bytes, Kibibytes, etc. Just as distance is not only represented in metres, but also in feet, Kilometres, etc. Here are the terms which are related to data.

1 b (bit) = 0 or 1
1 Kb (Kilobit) = 1000 bits
1 Mb (Megabit) = 1000 Kb
1 B (byte) = 8 bits
1 KiB (Kibibyte) = 1024 bytes
1 MiB (Mebibyte) = 1024 KiB

Kindly note the difference between the lower case letter 'b' and the upper case letter 'B'. 'b' refers to a bit while 'B' refers to a byte (1 byte = 8 bits). Visit wikipedia article Data rate units for more information.

OK ... now let me define the terms 'Upload Speed', 'Download Speed' and 'Bandwidth'.

When we talk of data transfer, it can happen either from the remote PC to our PC or from our PC to the remote PC. The former is known as 'Downloading' and the latter is known as 'Uploading'. Let me give a few examples to make the concept of downloading and uploading clearer.

Browsing - When browsing, pages are transferred from remote servers to your PC which means this is downloading. But when we fill a form and submit it (for eg. when we are creating a new login), data is sent back to the remote server which means uploading takes place.

Voice chatting - When we are voice chatting, we hear the other person's voice which involves downloading of data (because voice / data is transferred from remote PC to our PC) and the other person also hears our voice which involves uploading of data (because voice/data is transferred from our PC / remote PC).

Emailing - When reading your emails, data is transferred from the mail server to your PC which is downloading but when you compose a mail, attach some files and click on send, data is transferred from your PC to the mail server which is uploading.

Now that the terms 'Downloading' and 'Uploading' are clear, I shall proceed to define 'Download Speed' and 'Upload Speed'. 'Download Speed' is defined as the amount of data that can be downloaded in unit time and 'Upload Speed' is defined as the amount of data that can be uploaded in unit time i.e.

Download Speed = Amount of data downloaded (in Kb/Mb/KiB) / Time Taken
Upload Speed = Amount of data uploaded (in Kb/Mb/KiB) / Time Taken

Let me try to explain why we need both good 'Download Speed' and 'Upload Speed'. Like I mentioned above, when we are browsing download is involved and hence if we have a good download speed pages get displayed faster. Next, when we voice chat, both download and upload is involved and hence a good download speed means we can hear the other person's voice without any breaks and a good download speed means the other person can hear our voice without any breaks. Therefore when selecting the ISP, it is necessary to test both the Upload Speed and Download Speed. You can test your connection's upload speed and download speed from the following sites.

Upload Speed Test - http://testmy.net/u_load.php
Download Speed Test - http://testmy.net/d_load.php

The download speed test is performed by transmitting a fixed size of data from their server to your PC and dividing it by the time taken. The upload speed test is performed by transferring this downloaded data from your PC back to their server and dividing it by the time taken. Visit the above two links to make this clearer. You can also Google for 'upload speed test' and 'download speed test' to get other sites which offer this service.

Now let me define the term which most ISPs use 'bandwidth'. Bandwidth is defined as the amount of data that can be transferred (in both directions) in unit time.

Bandwidth = Amount of data transferred (upload + download) / Time taken

To make all the above things clear, let me explain with one simple example. Your ISP says he offers you a 256 Kbps connection. What does this mean? This means

256 Kbps (Kilobits per second)
= 256 Kb (Kilobits) of data is transferrable in 1 second
= 256000 b (bits) of data is transferrable in 1 second (because 1 k = 1000)
= 32000 B (bytes) of data is transferrable in 1 second (because 1 B = 8 b)
= 31.25 KiB (Kibibytes) of data is transferrable in 1 second (because 1 KiB = 1024 B)
= 31.25 KiB/s (Kibibytes per second)

In terms of upload and download speeds, this 256 Kbps bandwidth means the download speed = 256 Kbps if there are no uploads (download speed test) and upload speed = 256 Kbps if there are no downloads (upload speed test) and net speed = 256 Kbps if there are both downloads and uploads.

3. Choose unlimited / volume based plans based upon your usage and look for flexibility in plans

ISPs provide unlimited as well as volume based plans. Generally unlimited plans come with lower bandwidth and volume based plans come with higher bandwidth. By "volume based", I mean you are limited by the amount of data transfer (in mB/gB) or by the number of hours you can use the internet. So how would you decide what to opt for ? The rule is simple
i. If you spend less time on the internet (maybe about 30 mins daily) but need it for voice chatting / watching online videos (i.e. high bandwidth applications), you can opt for limited hours plan.
ii. If you spend more time on the internet (maybe about 2 hrs+) but do only browsing and emailing ( i.e. use low bandwidth applications), you can opt for limited data transfer plans.
iii. If you spend more time on the internet and also use high bandwidth applications, then opt for the unlimited plans.

You can consult the ISP provider (salesman) to suggest you a suitable plan. It is not really difficult to choose. If you are sure you won't use the internet for more than 30 mins a day on an average, go for time based volume plan. If you are going to use the internet for considerable amount of time daily but are not sure whether to go for data based volume plan / unlimited plan, I suggest you first go for data based plan. If the alloted amount of data is exhausted quickly, you can switch to the unlimited plan else you can continue with the data based volume plan.

Some ISPs don't have volume based plans. They have only unlimited plans. Therefore it is a good idea to look for ISPs which provide unlimited as well as volume based plans so that there is more flexibility.

4. Look for consistent speeds and low downtime

Let us assume you have taken an unlimited 256 Kbps connection. Now consider the following scenarios.
i. In the night you get speeds of 256 Kbps, but in the morning you get only 100 Kbps i.e. the connection is not consistent.
ii. You always get consistent speed of 256 Kbps but if there is some problem they take 3-4 days to get it solved and during that time you cannot access the internet i.e. the downtime is high.

These are two scenarios faced by many broadband ISP users. To make sure the speed is consistent and the downtime is low, it is always a good idea to get feedback from one of the current customers of the broadband ISP.

5. Look for good Customer Serivce

I believe this is an important aspect of any service. I had once used an ISP which had consistent speed, low downtime but pathetic customer care. Whenever I wanted the bill statement / had some minor query, I ended up calling them 4-5 times. Besides consuming my time, it also led to frustration. Again, the only way you can know about Customer Service is by talking to users who are already using the ISP.

6. Cost

The one thing necessary to take a new connection - money :-). The costs you are to look out are installation charges, modem/router security deposit and plan charges.
Now with huge competition and increased user base, the rates have decreased tremendously when compared to what they were 3 years back. The installation charges is a one-time non-refundable amount which is generally of value <=1000. The modem/router charges is generally a refundable amount of value <=1000. And of course, the plan you choose (unlimited/volume based) decides your monthly rental. Also note certain ISPs waive off installation charges and secuirty deposit for certain corporate employees.

7. Other considerations

i. Public IP: Certain ISPs give you public IP which means you can access your PC from anywhere on the Internet. Once you have a public IP address you can run a website on your PC, a ftp server on your PC, a mail server on your PC, etc.

On the other hand, a static IP ensures that your IP remains the same. But even if you are not gives a static IP, you can use services such as http://www.dyndns.org and http://www.no-ip.com to map your dynamic public IP to a free domain name.

ii. Router: Certain ISPs also provide a router for a refundable security deposit. The advantage of having a router is if you purchase a hub (~ Rs.500) you can connect more than one PC simultaneously to the interent. Of course you don't really need a router to share a connection. You can set up your own PC to act as a router but then if some other PC wants to connect to the internet, this router PC should be on. A router provided by the ISP avoids this complication.

iii. Compatibility with software you intend to use: While most of the internet software do not require any special requirements, some PC-to-phone dialers and and video conferencing software may require a public IP and/or certain ports to be open in the router firewall. Please ensure that the software to intend to use works properly with the ISP by testing the software at some friend's place who uses the same ISP.

iv. Integrated Services: Certain ISPs like Tata Indicom also provide integrated services. For example, I can use my Tata Indicom broadband id for connecting through Dial Up, making Net2Telephony calls, downloading songs, writing sample competitive exams online, etc.

v. Some ISPs mandate it to authenticate via the browser using a username and password for accessing the Interet (note that this is different from PPPoE authentication). As authentication via browser is not standard, this might be an issue if you need an always-on connection (for instance for usage with IP phone).