Reliance Netconnect v/s Airtel Data Card

A review of wireless options

With the growing dependency on internet along with the rise in laptop sales, the telecom companies have brought in true wireless solutions. The solution is data cards which are “truly” wireless because they provide with wireless connectivity throughout the country like a mobile as opposed to restricted range for wireless routers. Since I have used both AIRTEL and RELIANCE offerings, I thought it helpful to give an idea to others looking to go for it. Here are the options:

_____________________________AIRTEL____________ RELIANCE______________

Price Upfront (Rs.):———————- 5000———————2850——-

Plan Offerings: Unlimited usage ———–999———————- 1500——

……………………….1GB monthly usage——- 599———————– 650——-

Now the review:

RELIANCE NETCONNECT: The card is cheap upfront. Also they give the card free for 12 months advance subscription. But the plan is costly. Also the services are fuzzy. The unlimited plan is not truly unlimited. They have a policy of a fixed maximum credit limit for each number. They charge you for every MB you download, calculate the amount (which may go into thousands, I got a 27000 unbilled balance once) but then they deduct that amount in the final bill and send you a 1700 bill (including taxes). Pretty neat. But the problem is with this credit limit they have got. Once your unbilled amount gets over 1500 they freeze the number, on calling customer care to defreeze it, they ask you to pay up and don’t understand the meaning of “unlimited” download. So you go to Web World, give in a request an then your services are resumed after 2 days.

Now discussing the download and browsing speeds. All in all, the browsing is OK. It is comparable to a 128Kbps DSL connection. But the problem is with downloads. You get a speed of 13-15 Kbps when downloading through IE or Mozilla but when you switch on to torrents, it is an average of 5Kbps. Also the connection terminates is not truly always on type.

On the upside though, reliance offer far more plans which might suit anybody. They have night unlimited plan, hour based plan etc.

AIRTEL DATA CARD: The card costly upfront but then the plan cost is less so it pays off in the long run. The net speed is also comparable to 128Kbps DSL. Also the download speed is consistent for torrents as well giving constant average speed of 10 Kbps. I have had this 3 days and have already downloaded 3 movies, as opposed to Netconnect which took 2-3 days for 1 movie. The connection is more stable, I have used it for 10 hours straight and no disconnect.

The problem may be with the plans they offer, very few, only download based. Not a variety to choose from.

The final word from my side would be to go for AIRTEL, a good service and true to their word rather than hiding anything. Moreover, the modem cost may seem too much but will pay off in 4-5 months of subscription.

PS: All tariffs as of 28 December 2007. For any further information visit: http://onlinedeals.in/reliance/homepage_v2_paln.html (reliance) or http://www.airtel.in/Level2_t3data.aspx?path=2/33/96/134 (Airtel). Feel free to ask any query.

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~ by ZoMBie on December 28, 2007.