Tata Indicom Broadband PostPaid Connection - First Impressions

Update: Tata Indicom Broadband Connection SUCKS!

My current impression is that Tata Indicom Broadband SUCKS whenever there is any downtime and there are many. My connection is down for 7 days! I have called everyday their customer service number ( 60607070 ) and everytime they responds that it is in progress. Nobody ever attended to the problem. Nobody visited the premises in the last 7 days and they continue to placate me. All they say is “I am extremely sorry” and yet  nobody calls up, nobody visits the premises, nobody tells me what the problem is and nobody solves it. And the best part is that they have the gall to bill me for the days they didn’t provide any broadband service, despite their customer services reps contention that they automatically take care of unavailable service periods. Tata Indicom Broadband is not suitable for business, not suitable for home. They do not deserve to exist, it is a sick joke.

Tata Indicom Broadband is the worst broadband service ever. Stay away from it as you would stay away from bubonic plague or Bird Flu.

I am leaving Tata and moving to Airtel Home 2222 broadband connection plan, if available. Tata Indicom Broadband is an absolute disaster. Even Alliance Broadband is better.

In Kolkata their contact person is Debashis Ghosh & Sourav Dutta. Their mobile numbers are 9331851023 & 9231041517 respectively. They never ever picks up the mobile in my experience. I have tried over 100 times. Feel free to call them and find out. They are the face of Tata and it ain’t pretty.

I am sorry to say Tata Indicom in my book provides the worst customer service even by Indian standards. Remember when I say Tata Indicom sucks, I am being polite.

And all these rant is coming from a person who had in the past defended them and even praised them in this very article. A lot has changed in the intervening years. At one point Tata Indicom was good. Today they are the worst broadband service you can imagine.

Read my original review below:

Tata Indicom Broadband suffers from strongly negative perceptions on the internet which I summarized in Tata Indicom Broadband meta review. Based on the strongly negative perceptions I was initially reluctant to get Tata Indicom Broadband even as a secondary / backup connection. However BSNL DataOne Broadband continued to fail me miserably. For the last 3 weeks or so my unlimited plus BSNL Broadband connection has been on and off for almost equal time, probably more off than on. I was frustrated beyond imagination and my business was suffering. So I decided to go with my gut feelings and based on one positive report by Arjit from South Calcutta /Kolkata, the location I too stay. I have to say my impressions so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Read on for details.

Tata Indicom Unlimited Broadband: PostPaid versus Prepaid plan comparison

I did some initial research at Tata Indicoms Broadband site and wasn’t able to decide between Postpaid versus Prepaid unlimited plans. Prepaid was cheaper by about 100Rs and also there are good discounts for long commitments. On the other hand Postpaid plan came with static IP, which is highly desirable to us for two reasons. Firstly we can use the 1 Mbps connection for backup DNS server and as emergency backup mail server, should for any reason the main server becomes temporarily unavailable (you can never rely on any server unless you have backups). Secondly static IP allows us to send product emails and upgrades from our local servers without routing it through our main mail (taragana.com) server. Having static IP also allows us to stay out of any IP blacklists. In our other BSNL Dataone Broadband connection we get dynamic IPs; unfortunately most of which are flagged because many blacklist service providers tend to ban dynamic IPs en masse. In short static IP is good but I was still undecided. So I called their contact number and they scheduled a sales representative to arrive on the next day.

The sales representative said that postpaid connections for business were served from a different server and he strongly recommended it over the prepaid connection for reliability and consistent speed. I could believe him because I have seen with BSNL that business connections were better served than home connections. After studying the router setup I am now confident that he was correct. What I liked about this guy was that he was very upfront about all the charges and all his details checked out, a very pleasant experience (WYHIWYG) by Indian standards.

What impressed me most was that Tata Indicom stressed on 85% service guarantee, they didn’t pussyfoot and promised more than they are confident of delivering. If you consider that bad for your taste then consider this - BSNL DataOne broadband provides no guarantee about their service and availability and their service is currently unavailable most of the time. BSNL DataOne customer service merely provides a complaint number but the problem is never (you read that right) ever addressed. I am yet to hear from anyone who could ever solve any problems with BSNL Dataone broadband. In a scale of 1-10 where 1 is the worst, BSNL Dataone Broadband ranks at -10 or less. I am speaking from 2 years of bitter experience with BSNL Dataone broadband.

Tata Indicom Unlimited Broadband Installation Service

I didn’t want to compromise and static IP was the clincher. I opted for postpaid unlimited broadband connection. The sales rep. said it will be installed in 7 days.

The cable guy came the very next day and laid the cable with lots of extra cable should we decide to move to a different room. At that moment my BSNL landline phone started acting up and there was strong hissing sound even though the line was connecting. I coaxed him to tighten the BSNL connection, assuming they became loose when he laid the new line. He said it was not possible but obliged anyway. Then I traced the problem was originating from my BSNL ADSL modem, which I was soon able to rectify (more on it later). Nice service so far.

At this time I was a bit worried that the installation may also be done on the same day; it was Saturday and I didn’t want them to come for the next 3-5 days while I got the chance to do some reading on how to properly route and load balance two adsl connections. However I didn’t want to postpone them either as it was a very pleasant experience to see fast service in Indian context (no offence intended; it is stark reality, even foreign companies provide lackadaisical customer service in India. Try connecting to Samsung customer service for example; been unable to merely connect to their phone number for 3-4 days, let alone book a complaint.). The installation engineer came on the very same day and took about 10 minutes to setup my connection. He was very polite. He didn’t have much clue about Linux. However all he needed was a browser to connect to the ADSL modem which I provided him with. In few minutes he was done. He configured it so I could connect the router to my switch and all the machines will have direct connection to the internet (with NAT & DHCP). He also showed me how to make the required changes myself should I ever need to reset the modem, sweet. He asked for a login for my email account which he registered and it was all over. He was very nice.

Tata Indicom Unlimited Broadband Connection Speed

The download speed was decent at 30-35 Kbps (bytes per second). I haven’t tested the upload but the good news is that they promise the upload to be the same as download or 512 Kbps, whichever is less. With BSNL Dataone broadband unlimited plan you get a measly 5-7 Kbps at best.

The connection has been without problem so far. I am testing it for 1.5 days now so I can give a better verdict on it later, much later.

Tata Indicom Unlimited Broadband Customer Service

The first level customer service was particularly skillful. However they were able to reset my password. They also clarified one other issue for me correctly. I would rate them as ok so far.

Tata Indicom Unlimited Postpaid Broadband Capability & Flexibility

Using Tata Indicom broadband is dead simple for both Linux & Windows. They set it up as a router with NAT and DHCP enabled. So you can just plug the cable from the router to your hub or switch and can seamlessly share the connection with any number of computers. I also tried using their USB connector and it worked without any problem at all. In Linux I just had to add a new network interface. It recognized the USB and allowed me to add the interface and activate it. It took me about 2 minutes to switch to using USB, instead of ethernet connector, on my Fedora Core 6 box.

The router comes with built-in firewall (they all do) which protects your computer from outside access. You can however setup virtual servers to route traffic to particular port to one of your internal servers. You can also setup DMZ.

Having equal upload & download speed means you can setup small servers on your machine. I will setup my backup DNS server here for the time being before we move it to our new dedicated server. Static IP is ideal for demoing any product or solution.

Conclusion
My personal initial experience with Tata Indicom Broadband unlimited Postpaid connection has been very positive so far in South Kolkata. However as I said before broadband service / provider experience can be very location dependent. Your mileage may vary and there are tons of negative experiences with Tata Indicom Broadband in the net. My impressions have been somewhat influenced by my (utterly negative) experiences with BSNL DataOne broadband and overall understanding of the broadband scenario in India; my broadband needs are more technical than average Joe user, but the simple installation of Tata Indicom is bound to impress anyone. If you are thinking of using Tata Indicom, go for postpaid and with router. They have a good deal with 1Mbps unlimited connection for approx Rs. 4000.