Broadband Internet in India

The current state of affairs of Broadband Internet in India is as follows:

The Good

1. Airtel Broadband (Bangalore) : The best so far (as per my experience). The uptime/performance is good, so is the customer service is good. The problems are handled very well. Incase of an outage, you get an intimation well in advance. Down side is that its not available in all areas
2. YOU Telecom(Pune): They are not as great as Airtel but their services are decent. Problems are resolved within 24hours.One pain point is their billing system. Postpaid isn't truly postpayed and they keep nagging you to pay the bill. Another is they rate limit data downloaded via p2p networks.
   

The Bad

1. BSNL (Bangalore): When it works, nothing like it. The question is how often does it work and how long does it take to get it fixed. Customer service is pathetic. They don't care about customers. You have run around to get things working.

The Ugly

1. BSNL(Pune): People here just don't care. It took them more than 2 weeks to find out the reason why the Internet connection is not working after numerous phone calls. Not that its fixed. There is no concept of customer service! No one cares about you. Incase of a complaint you are redirected to another person and then to another. I already 5 numbers stored.
2. Hathway(Pune): The management is bad. Its been 2 years since i have disconnected their service; i still have the rented modem and still keep getting bills. Again when it worked, it worked like a charm but unfortunately it never worked for me. The concept of customer service didn't exist.
   

This leaves out Satyam and Tata Indicom. I have heard/read really bad reviews for both of them. Recently Reliance entered this space. I don't have any reviews about them yet.
The state of affairs of broadband in India is really pathetic. Only few players provide good service. But again they can't provide connectivity to all parts of the city.

Bangalore !!

BANGALORE

Its almost three weeks now , that I am in Bangalore now. Its obvious that a lot of people will ask me how do I feel ? How is Bangalore? . So here goes......

Bangalore ,by and large is like Pune's elder brother . Its bigger in terms of pollution ,population , traffic and sizes of malls compared to Pune. Rickshawallas equally loot you here. Two things worth contrasting here are the roads and the traffic sense . Almost all the roads here are in good condition if not the best . The traffic sense among the people is much more better. Its much more civilized than Pune. Very rarely will you find a Schumacher here driving at the speed of light cutting across traffic as opposed to Pune where every second one is a Schumacher.Traffic in the evening is bad as expected. Also there are many one ways and no U turns allowed here , that one wrong in the evening and you are stuck forever.
One of the most peculiar things about Bangalore is the names of restaurants . All of them end with a Sagar. Shrindhi Sagar , Shanti Sagar , Shree Sagar. Every area has its own “New Shanti Sagar” . I am not sure whether its a franchisee or not. Also , here one will find a juice centre in every corner of the street. Most of juice centres have only two names Shree Ganesh or only Ganesh Juice Center. Whatever be the name , the food and drinks that you get are delicious and cheap.
So for people with a large appetitie and a light pocket , hoarding with these names are a sight for sore eyes. As it is with every big city , you will find KFCs,Pizza Huts, in every area.
Bangalore being the home town of Cafe Coffee Day. Almost Every major road will have at least two. No room for a Barista here.
Bangalore has shortage of multiplexes. Only three to cater to this Mammoth population. Although the ticket rates are high (150 and above), the movie viewing experience is great. The seats have head support and lot of leg space. The screens are big. You feel “paisa vasool” especially after going to E-Square in Pune.
Pubs/Discs here dont have cover charges. Yes you read right no cover charges and the ambience is awesome. We had been to “Legions Of Rock” an amazing pub in Koramangala . It has three floors. All with really screen , constantly churning out videos of rock concerts complemented with an equally mind blowing audio system. The food was also good.
Here again you bound to find a lot of “Mall Rats” . Mall Rats are people like you and me who have nothing better to do on weekend and neither have the money to blow , so we just roam around in the Air Conditioned Malls enjoying the AC, enjoying the crowd. This species consist of people like software profs, BPO employees , college students etc. A Saturday evening in Forum Mall will be like 9am at Dadar station. Same is the story about of Brigade Road or Commercial street.

Language can be barrier at times. Many lower class people dont understand Hindi/English . But keywords are sufficient. Learning Kannada is one uphill task.
“Bangalore is a happening City !” , one friend in Pune told me once. I saw the papers and said “Yeah!” . Lots of bandhs , torching of buses etc over issues like Cauvery River dispute Karnatak has with Tamil Nadu and Belgaum issue with Maharashtra.

I am bound to miss Pune. I miss the mountains being so close to my house. I miss “pohe” which you get only in Maharashtra. I will miss the potholes too......happily.

So now I hum the song “ Here I am , This is me ,theres nowhere else on Earth I rather be !”

BANGALORE HEADBANGS TO IRON MAIDEN .

“Scream for me Bangalore !! Scream for me Bangalore “, the voice echoed across Palace Grounds on Saturday 17th March. 25000 + responded. This was the power of Bruce Dickinson. This was the power of Iron Maiden.

Fans here were waiting for such a thing to happen. It was a short concert (90 min) but something we will remember for a lifetime. Bruce’s energy , the amazing backdrops and ofcourse Iron Maiden.

The show started with an amateur band , winners of Campus Rock Idol which failed to impress the crowd. Parikrama came on next . They had a completely original set. They churned out some amazing numbers . Here the crowd was introduced to Imran , violinist. The jugalbandi of Imran with Parikrama got a lot of applause from the crowd.

Next on Stage was Lauren Harris (Steve Harris’s daughter supposedly) . Her band had two male guitarists and one female drummer. She is supposedly , upcoming act or band to watchout out for.

She thoroughly failed to impress. Her vocals were totally out of sync with the rest of the band. The guitarists were top notch , but Only One thing I can say about her is that even Britney Spears is better.

By the time this band finished , we could here only one anthem “Maiden, Maiden”.

In about half an hours time Iron Maiden were on the stage. They started with a couple of numbers from their brand new album ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ . This started setting the mood . They churned out a mix of classics and new ones like ‘The Number of the Beast’ , ‘Run to the Hills’ , ‘Trooper’ ,’Iron Maiden’ along with which the crowd was headbanging. With numbers like ‘Fear of the Dark’,’Hallowed be thy Name’ , we felt we were truly in the presence of the Metal Gods.

The backdrops changed depending on the album , which was truly amazing visual experience. Then there was Eddy! The props used were also great. We had a big tank appearing out of nowhere and Eddy popping out of it ,seeing through a binocular. Another Avatar of Eddy appeared as a Policeman .

So Overall , the crowd was treated to some amazing out of this world experience which none of would forget in our lifetimes. Iron Maiden did promise to come back in less than 17 months.


Till then there will only one voice in our heads,...... ”Scream for me Bangalore”

Official Report: From THE HINDU