Net4India

By July last year, more than 120 companies were given licenses to start ISP services in the country. Out of these, about 15 are already operational. The latest addition to the list is Net4India, targeting small and medium enterprises. 

A Net4India account is available in five packages of 25 and 100 hours, three months unlimited access, six months unlimited access, and one year unlimited access. The one-year unlimited access account is priced at Rs 10,000, which comes to about 58 paise per hour. 

With any of the unlimited access accounts, you get double of what you pay for. So, if you buy a one-year account, you can use the same account for an extra year, free of charge.

The account we received supported only one login at a time. This ensures that if anyone else tries to log in, it’s immediately detected and access denied. You can also have multi-user access enabled, but you’ll have to pay extra for that. 

The account comes with a starter kit that helps you get online quickly and easily. The dialer software was still in its beta stages, but nevertheless worked without a hitch. The final version is due to be released sometime later this year. The starter kit also helps you detect your modem. Logging into the ISP wasn’t a problem, we got through on first attempt and got stable connects. How it will be once more users sign up needs to be seen.

We compared the performance with VSNL, MantraOnline, and MTNL. We tried connecting to them from different places at different times using 56k and 33.6k modems. Interestingly, we got download speeds between 0.25 to 2.40 kbps. Apparently, bandwidth seems to be a major bottleneck across all ISPs.



The CD accompanying the account also had a lot of free goodies such as IE 5, Netscape Communicator 4.7, ICQ99, mIRC, Getright3.3, CuteFTP 2.6, VDO Live, WinZip 7, Paint Shop Pro 6, Talk Mail, Gozilla 3.3, Norton AntiVirus, and lots more. 

Other services from the ISP include domain name registration for Rs 650 per year. The normal cost for doing this is $35, which roughly comes to about Rs 1,600, and you need a global credit card to make the payment. The Net4India offer makes domain name registration cheaper.

Currently, Net4India is operational only in Delhi. As of now, there are no outlets from where an account can be purchased–you have to call or mail them along with your address information. It would’ve been more convenient if they accepted online order forms that could be printed, filled, and sent to them.