Discussion Post Your Broadband Journey

[Subha_007]

This thread is for discussing the broadband journey of the forum members. From Dial-up to Fiber.
Requesting mods to make it sticky.

 

[Subha_007]

I started my Broadband Journey in 2008 with BSNL. As my father is a retired PSU employee and was in service at that time, we used to get some 20% discount at that point of time. It was a DSL based line with 2 Mbps speed with cap of 2GB data and unlimited from 2AM to 8AM@2Mbps. Oh boy I miss those night adventures.
Later with degradation of BSNL broadband services, I left the service in 2013 as my connection was down for 16 days before they fixed it.

I moved to Wishnet in 2013 and used their services till 2015 till I moved to Bengaluru for my job. The plan was unlimited@512Kbps. And insane 12 Mbps download speed for torrents. Good old days . The main issue with this connection was that the downtime was high and it wasn't reliable. It used to drop in between my video calls that I used to have with my parents through Skype.

In 2015, Hathway became available in our locality and they opened a shop near my house with big advertisement of being the first G-Pon based service provider in our locality. I was among the first 10 customers in our locality to get it and this got a free installation . The initial plas was 20GB@10Mbps FUP and after that unlimited@512Kbps. I used the connection for 6 years and the last plan I had was unlimited@150mbps. Their connection reliability was commendable at start but after pandemic, their services became really bad and faced frequent intermittent disconnection in between my work meetings or during valorant sessions . So in November 2021 I decided to part ways with it.

In November 2021, I got Airtel Xstream Fiber connection with unlimited@200Mbps plan. Yet to experience a single downtime. Recently upgraded to mesh.

 

[lakshmanthod]

been using at net cafe since 1999
started with sify dial up in 2001 56 kbps
moved to act then beam fiber 1 mbps plan for 2 years
too many disconnections moved to airtel dsl V fiber 40mbps for 2 years modem got fried closed the connection.
used act fiber 100 mbps for 1 year too many problems in my area closed it
finally moved to airtel ftth 100 mbps 4 years back so far going good

 

[amansingh]

been using at net cafe since 1999
started with sify dial up in 2001 56 kbps
moved to act then beam fiber 1 mbps plan for 2 years
too many disconnections moved to airtel dsl V fiber 40mbps for 2 years modem got fried closed the connection.
used act fiber 100 mbps for 1 year too many problems in my area closed it
finally moved to airtel ftth 100 mbps 4 years back so far going good

Haha. Net cafe and sify. Had forgotten those names. Nostalgia.

 

[Esmail]

Started the Broadband journey when I moved from Dialup to ADSL to VDSL on MTNL in Mumbai. Don't remember the exact years but then upgraded to Cable broadband on Hathway Docsis 3.0
Ultimately switched to Airtel Xstream fiber 4 years back and have been content with it since.
Surrendering MTNL connection was easy but terminating Hathway was a real pain, even though it was a prepaid line they would constantly call to recharge and even after surrendering the modem they kept calling from different numbers since I kept blocking all of them.

 

[lakshmanthod]

Haha. Net cafe and sify. Had forgotten those names. Nostalgia.

compared to the horror days in those times with freq disconnects mind blowing telephone bills the only issues we face nowadays are no service issues speeds are almost stabilized in all providers if they have to survive in market else competition will kill them fast

 

[Bapun]

Started my broadband internet journey with BSNL ADSL broadband​

In 2010, I started my broadband journey with BSNL ADSL copper cable broadband. It was the only broadband option available in my city that time. I used to face intermittent speed fluctuations and minimum two downtimes per day (router internet indicator would turn red suddenly during some important work) was like a norm.

Furthermore, changing the internet plan was a PITA as the BSNL selfcare plan change requests were of no use. I had to go to their office which is 7 k.m. far from my house and fill their plan change form in written. It would take a day or two for the babus to process the plan change on their end after that.

Shifted to Railwire Fiber broadband​

Sometime around 2017, my area local cable operator who used to run cable TV business started fiber broadband business from whom I got my first optical fiber cable broadband, Railwire.

Initially, it felt so good because I had moved from the worst service to average service. While I had better uptime compared to BSNL, it couldn't satisfy a tech enthusiast like me due to it's speed fluctuations. I got to know the reason was for that because the LCO was selling the connection to people beyond his equipments capacity.

My thread sharing Railwire broadband experience during 2017: Got a new Broadband Connection - Railwire FTTH

The move to JioFiber was like a dream come true​

Around 2016, Jio's 4G mobility entry brought an internet revolution in my city. So I always imagined how it would be if they start their broadband service. It became reality when on late 2019 I got to know from advertisements in the city that they actually started testing their optical fiber broadband. It took two years for them to reach my street and as soon as I became aware, I took a JioFiber prepaid connection which I am still continuing so far.

My thread sharing JioFiber broadband experience during 2022: Purchased a JioFiber Prepaid connection - installation experience and initial Impressions inside

While I love JioFiber services namely the bundled OTT offering and uptime but it lacks on internet responsiveness. JioFiber in my area has 100% uptime with only one or two downtimes in a year or two. But despite giving the promised speed and me, being on the 300 Mbps high-tier plan, many websites do throttle on Jio network. We have an extensive discussion on it in our forum so I won't go into more details here. Interested users can read this thread - JioFiber long-standing routing issues

Overall, I am satisfied with my JioFiber connection as it's the best among the available options in my locality.

What the future holds!​

I am noticing that since last year, Airtel is expanding their Xstream Fiber broadband (optical fiber) cabling across my city with LCO operated model. And from the Airtel sales person I got to know that they would bring it to my street sooner or later. So once that is available, I will try Airtel broadband because their internet browsing experience feels more responsive compared to Jio. Furthermore, I can have a backup option if one of the service provider's internet goes down.

My opinion on the new AirFiber (FWA) technology​

Only to cut down the costs of optical fiber cabling and monetize 5G investments, two major telecom operators Airtel and Jio are pushing their mediocre AirFiber. It is no way superior compared to traditional wireline optical fiber. I would avoid using them as long as they continue to provide wired fiber in my city/locality.

 

[Zuke]

In the past, I remember using my mother's Reliance CDMA phone to browse R-World and think that I am browsing the "Internet". It was a big thing for me.

Later, my mother got Nokia 3110c phone and that was a big change. I didn't use Internet initially because it was charging a lot of money.

2008 - We shifted to a different city, and I lost all of my friends and was kinda isolated by others in the new city, so my mother started letting me use her phone to browse internet and have fun.

Fun thing, somehow internet started working for free in it. I used to watch Shaktimaan in YouTube at that time. Later, one day I noticed that internet is not working anymore, so I deleted the APN settings and created new one. Still didn't work. Turns out, balance was less than ₹1. I lost free internet after that.

2011 - Sometime in 2011, we finally got a PC and used my mother's phone for USB tethering. Since we couldn't use it when she was at office, she got us a Airtel dongle. Speed used to be like 8-16 kB/sec. usually. I remember being heavily disappointed when I learned the difference in Kbps and KB/sec. since my Airtel dongle mentioned speed as 400 or 600 Kbps.

I remember leaving my PC on for days to download Windows 7 Enterprise (the only version I was able to get easily at that time).

2011 - Got Docomo SIM and then I started using this for Internet. It was much better experience with speed like 16-24 kB/sec., sometimes even reaching 27-28 kB/sec.

Sometimes later, BSNL 3G arrived, so I started using it. It was not-so-reliable but worked good enough for Internet. Speed used to be around 50 kB/sec. to 500 kB/sec.

2014 - Docomo finally released 3G here and the speed was great at like 100 kB/sec. to 1 mB/sec. It was too expensive though, so I stayed on BSNL 3G for web browsing.

2016 - Jio 4G released. It was a massive thing, since I could finally download anything I want without worrying about data usage. Speed was 50-500 kB/sec. Later improved but still not that good. I used to curse Jio for having horrible ping while playing Critical Ops on my phone.

2019 - Airtel 4G released. Their network was barely there, so I used to keep my hotspot stuck at the top of my house to use internet on my phone and play PUBGM. It was at least playable - still, often used to disconnect or ping would spike. Now Airtel 4G is fine here. Speed was 100 kB/sec. to 2 mB/sec. [now 1-3 mB/sec.]

2021 - In the late 2021, I got RailWire. I was really happy to finally get a wired broadband and had high hopes. They disappointed me in multiple ways. Used to have 100 Mbps plan but speed 10% of time and mostly it would be 0-15 Mbps (on lower end mostly). Also, often disconnects for hours, almost every other day. Their MSP used to shout for complaining anything, so I was looking for something else, but nothing was good enough.

2023 - Finally got JioFiber. No more disconnect issues. Full speed almost all the time, and no issues while gaming - except maybe poor routing issue causing high ping in some games, still playable.

2024 - Got local ISP as backup, when JioFiber works poorly (happens once or twice every other month). It doesn't have as great uptime as JioFiber, but it is close.

 

[kanagadeepan]

I got my first internet connection in Home during 1998, using dial-up internet of speed 16 to 24 kbps (yes, bits per second) using a dial-up cum fax modem of 56kbps. For getting connected one has to try minimum 3 times, out of which one will be junk connection for sure. Each attempt of Getting connected to internet takes minimum 2 minutes. We have to dial STD number to Madurai. So Internet is sold in hours and we have to pay STD LL call charges as well, so it comes to around Rs8 to Rs10 per minute (for speed less than today's post FUP speed of mobile data). Internet used to be a Luxury at those times.

Later BSNL ADSL came, starting 128kbps and I got 256kbps plan, with 512MB (yes, MB) monthly usage limit for day time and FREE UL during mid-night 2AM to 6AM. I remember using alarm to wake up on 4:30 AM to download stuff. Some people used schedulers for torrents using that plan.

Later came the Local wireless internet using WiFi 5GHz, but it was totally un-reliable. Used that for 6 months only. Speed offered is 2Mbps, but never reached above 128kbps during morning time.

Later BSNL came with WiMax technology similar to Local Wireless, but with dedicated BW on 2500MHz spectrum. Speed is 512 kbps with UL data and NO FUP. It was surprisingly stable and we all loved it. Since the experience of consumers was very good, BSNL decided to close the contract with the Pvt Co and returned the spectrum back to Govt.

Then came Local Fiber connection with 5GHz Wireless Backup option. They provided Wireless internet (5GHz) during Fiber cable cut as backup - Zero Down-Time. Initially Speed offered was 10 Mbps for Rs2500 per month, later they increased the speed and reduced the tariff. Currently using 200Mbps for Rs999 per month.

Another backup connection, I am currently using is BSNL FTTH, 60Mbps for Rs499, with UL Calls FREE. Tertiary connection Rs299 plan with 10Mbps data in ground floor.

Used 5G FWA of Jio last year and closed in 11 months due to un-reliable in nature and complicated T&C.


I just laugh when my kids say "Internet is so slow around 20Mbps", in second floor as router is far away in first floor. They have taken internet for granted. Later I extended the (Local fiber) connection (wired) to that floor with separate router as AP.

Thanks for bringing back the old memories. Mobile data is yet another level story, for another day.