BSNL EVDO Card - Non-techie Review / Experience

[neo_anderson]

I am kinda new in Ahmedabad, and had just got a house on rent. Being an internet junkie, i was looking here and there for a broadband connection, but was sad to find that airtel does not has laid lines in my area, and my earlier ISP GTPL was also not here. So, I went to BSNL's office, with forms and docs and all. After 2 days of being asked to go here and there, i was told that a bsnl landline would require atleast 10 days, and then 10 days more for broadband, rounding upto around a month. There i saw the poster for EVDO card offering upto 2 mbps speeds, so I was obviously lured towards it and bought it for 4237/- INR. And hence, the nightmare began.

I started getting very low speeds, lower than my 256 kbps gtpl one .The speeds increased in the nights, but hardly touched 43-50 in utorrent... I connected the card to the usb cord and put it on top of an empty jar for bringing it to a height, but it still gave me bad speeds. I kept the windows open, but to no avail. It always gives me full network though. Yesterday night, i put up on download an ebook of 45 mb with 347 seeders and 80 leechers, from demonoid, and it got downloaded in 4 freakin' hrs... Earlier with a 256 kbps gtpl connection, 700 mb took around 7-8 hrs. only. This EVDO card is the worst thing i have bought for a long time now.... DO NOT .. i repeat, DO NOT buy it...

[neo_anderson]

any one knows if these tata indicom broadband power surf/flash surf plans are any good, and what if fair usage policy download limits are exceeded???

[sakumar79]

Please dont purchase the wireless access connections on impulse. First make sure that for the place where you will be using it, you will be able to get the speed promised. For BSNL EVDO, there are many locations where you will be getting low speeds only because the towers needed to support the higher speeds may not be available. In such locations, you will only get 115kbps speed similar to those offered by Reliance Net connect, etc...

Secondly, I would not recommend you change to Reliance or Tata Indicom from BSNL because in general their customer support is much worse than BSNL...

My recommendation is that if you are going to be using it at home only, get a BSNL landline with broadband connection and then ditch the EVDO... I think they have a three month trial period after which you can return it (but I recommend you clarify that with the BSNL people in your area). If you are going to use it on the move, and you do want to download a lot, stick with BSNL EVDO because its plans are much better value for money since you get true unlimited download. If you dont need to download a lot and you are going to use it on the move, then perhaps you may consider Reliance Netconnect which offers cheaper plans on the move (300 per month).

Arun

[neo_anderson]

thanks for the advic e kumar, i guess i'll find out about bsnl landline/broadband...

[Ecko]

Dude dont give negatice feedback if u did it wrongly
I'm using it for past several months
I get download speed upto 140kbps ir around a 1.5 Mbps connection
Speed ofcourse depends on distance of urs from the main tower (generally located & main headoffice) of BSNL
Wat I recon is get it on trail & use it for few months & if ur satisfied then go 4 it

[neo_anderson]

Ecko dude, i clearly stated it's my experience...i aint asking any1 not to get it...just asking to be careful...

[rkarthea]

OK. guys, you've got the whole thing wrong. First of all, the EVDO standard supports 2Mbps only for downloads and not for uploads. If anyone's using torrents, they are required to seed to be able to receive. The faster your seeding, the faster is your download. So, on EVDO essentially what happens is that the tracker sees that you aren't seeding much so it decides to throttle your download speeds too. This is what must've happened to you @neo_anderson.

Try running YouTube and stuff. Try downloading a file directly from an official site. Try running speed tests on speedtest.net

Do all this and then post share your experiences once again.

There are hacks available to make torrents download faster but they may get disabled easily by the people at BSNL.

This EVDO thingy is essentially for people on the move who need fast internet access 24x7x365. Not for people like us who use it for massive downloads. So, stick to your hard line Broadband at home even if you decide to get one of these.

Cheers!

[Ecko]

Originally Posted by neo_anderson

Ecko dude, i clearly stated it's my experience...i aint asking any1 not to get it...just asking to be careful...

Dude u said Don't Buy It
U Never said "Do TryOut Before Buying"

[neo_anderson]

Originally Posted by Ecko

Dude u said Don't Buy It
U Never said "Do TryOut Before Buying"

watever mr. grammar-planet ... creepy it mite seem, but u do sound like u live precociously near a bts tower, or , oh good lord, u gotta be an bsnl employee...coz yey-vhery other person seems to HATE the evdo gig m8...

[jhn2001]

i was thinking of trying EVDO

[prashanthnbhat]

EVDO is good, here in bangalore, especially if you download a lot. I used to get 60KBps on an average. Of course it might depend upon the area you are in. Now I have Tata Indicomm photon+. It is better and faster. But limited usage, thats the sad part.

[Wannabe_a_techie]

Another reason to not take BSNL's EVDO card is that tariff is being revised and download limits are being set from this month!

http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/evdo.htm

For unlimited downloads the new tariff is Rs 999/month.

[kunalkkkk]

I m using evdo in Pune, maximum speed is 160 kbits/s means 20 kbytes/s......actually not 0.2mbps also..................!

[Anubis]

Since u get low speed there are no towers near ur home

U must get speeds of 10-25kbps speed right?

If a tower is near u , u'll get download speeds of 2 mbps

[max_demon]

wats ip you guys get i mean the range