VSNL beats the rest in terms of transfer rates, followed by Sampark Online with good connects and a helpful helpdesk

The Internet fever has definitely got our national capital under its firm grip. Gone are those days when access to the Internet meant only VSNL. With ISPs mushrooming all over the place and prices hitting all-time lows, the consumer is suddenly faced with so many options. So often, some ISP announces its next dhamaka offer. This triggers a chain reaction with the others trying to follow suit. We put 10 ISPs in Delhi under the PCQ Labs microscope to help you decide.

Buying the accounts

Purchasing the accounts was not such a big issue in Delhi. Most ISPs like Satyam, Mantra, Dishnet, Sigma, and Pacific have their accounts available at various shops and outlets throughout the capital. A good place where you’ll find most of these is Nehru Place or Palika Bazaar. An even easier option available with some ISPs is home delivery. You simply dial their number and tell them which account you need, and they’ll have it delivered at your home on the day and time you specify. Full marks to Sampark and Net4India who were able to deliver on the same day. They even offer to install the account and get it up and running.

However, it was not smooth sailing with MTNL. First you have to go to one of their offices and fill up a form and pay by draft or cash. But the catch is, your account doesn’t get activated instantly. "We’ll call you and tell you when your account is active" is what they say. And sure enough they called up after a day and a half, but not to announce our account activation, but to inform that the username we had selected was already taken by someone else! The next day we called them up to inquire about the status, and after a few back-end conversations, we were informed that the account had already been activated. So much for the promise to call and inform.

Somebody help me!

With the accounts in hand, it was now time to seek some help from their helpdesks. We rang them all up and hit them with a few easy and a few tough ones.

First the good ones. The ISP that was definitely the most helpful and friendly was Dishnet. We got through in one try and what’s more, the phone was picked up after two rings. The answers were satisfactory and at the end they were even kind enough to ask "Anything else sir?" Not far behind was Sampark Online. Getting through was no problem and after a little call transferring, our queries were all answered satisfactorily. Net4India also falls into this category. We got through the first time and our questions were answered without any call transfers. Moving on to Sigma, we didn’t have any problems getting through and with some hints from our side, we did get the answers.

Now the not so good ones. First in this group is Satyam. Here the problem is getting through to the helpdesk. Either the telephone keeps ringing with no one picking up the call, or it’s outright engaged. Finally, on the fifth attempt when we did get, through we were greeted with a recorded message asking us to key in our phone number with area code and various other choices kept popping up. After a little button pressing, we finally got to hear a human voice. Our questions were all answered promptly though.

MTNL—the problem here was also of getting through. We had three helpdesk numbers and all were engaged. But when we did manage to get through to them, the person at the other end just didn’t want to answer without consulting his colleagues on every question, but at least he did give us the answers.

The worst of the lot were VSNL and Mantra. Phone lines were always engaged and we were not able to even get through. In Mantra’s case when we got through, all we got was a recorded message saying that they are too busy, could we please call back later?

I want my bytes

Finally, we had the accounts all configured and ready to go. So, how easy is it to connect?

VSNL and Sampark were the best in the group and we were able to connect at first attempt at different times of the day. The other ISPs were not all that bad, but some of them do have the habit of not recognizing your password at times, while others had their telephone lines coming busy sometimes.

Now we come to the test for raw throughputs. The scene here is actually pretty good, barring a few exceptions. VSNL was the most pleasing, giving us fast transfer rates at all times of the day and at night. Another good performer was Sampark, which gave us fairly fast connects and was more consistent than VSNL. ZeeNext actually gave us the fastest transfer rates in our morning session, but we were not able to record its performance in our night session due to its server not being able to recognize the ftp site. Probably a DNS problem. Same was the case with Sigma. In the mornings, it was second only to Zeenext, and at night, like ZeeNext, it couldn’t connect to a ftp site.

Mantra and Net4India had a similar story. In the morning and afternoon, their performance was just about average but at night, they were both able to double their transfer rates, but still coming nowhere near VSNL.

Dishnet was a fairly consistent performer, but its transfer rates were not all that great, both for the morning and night sessions.

Pacific, Satyam, and MTNL didn’t perform too well in this test. They all gave average throughputs throughout the day and the situation didn’t change later at night. With Pacific and Mantra, we also faced the problem of getting disconnected from the ftp site midway through the download.

So who had the right mix?

Well, if all you want is speed then VSNL is definitely the right choice. But don’t depend on their helpdesk. Also, buying a VSNL account is not exactly a bed of roses.

If you are looking for more hand holding, then Sampark is a great choice. Accounts are delivered to your doorstep, helpdesks are always there for help, and moreover, you get good connects throughout the day.

But VSNL had too much of a lead in transfer rates, and hence is our ISP of choice in Delhi.

Ashish S with Sachin M@Delhi