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ISP Shootout: New Delhi

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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?

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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

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