My initial experience with Asianet internet service in Kerala
Are you looking for Asianet broadband services? I have been using it for a while and you can read my review and experience here.
I have been using BSNL WiMax for about 6 months and I wasn't very happy with the reliability and speed. A lot of times, WiMax has been going down and I could not rely on it for my online work.
In this article, I am going to talk about my initial experience while signing up with Asianet for broadband internet. Skip to this article if you like to read my review of Asianet broadband after using it for few months.Signing up with Asianet broadband
Few months ago, I decided to try Asianet broadband service in Kerala. I called them and within an hour, a representative came to my house to collect the application form. I signed up for "Speed 980" plan, which gives 2 Mbps speed upto 20Gb. My intention was to keep the BSNL until I try Asianet for a while. If I am satisfied with the services, I would get rid of BSNL WiMax connection and upgrade to a higher speed/bandwidth plan with Asianet. Two hours after the representative collected the application form, I received a call from their call center to confirm my application and address. So far, so good. I was expecting the cable guys and service guys to show up soon to put the cables and activate the connection.
I was impressed with the overall experience initially. The only complaint I had so far is, they don't give an option to pay money and buy the modem. The options are limited to either lease it by paying an up front fee (Rs 950 for regular modem and Rs 1,800 for WiFi modem) or rent it by paying refundable deposit of Rs 1,200 and monthly rent of Rs 75. I would rather prefer to have an option to buy the modem by paying the full cost.
On next business day, Asianet cable team called me to lay the cables to my home. They showed up promptly, on time. However, they discovered there was no cable in front of my home and about 100 meters of cable is required to pull the connection from the nearest available location. They had to go back since they require special permission from the company to pull extra long cable. What is next? Here is a series of disappointment
March 3, 2014: I spoke to the Asianet representative and awaiting a decision from them. Hope Asianet will make a decision in favor of me and I can enjoy Asianet high speed internet. I will post the latest updates as soon as I get them. Also, I will be sharing my overall experience with their services.A ray of hope: received confirmation to provide connection
On March 6, 2014, I sent a few emails to the higher authorities and I think that helped. I received a few calls from them and I was offered their service if I could make an advance payment for a long term. After some negotiation, the "long term" was brought down to 3 months and I was offered the technicians will come to the cabling work in a day or two.
However, nobody showed up next few days for the cabling work. I made several calls to the agent who came and collected the advance payment. He told a few excuses first and later stopped attending my calls. I sent a few SMS as well, which too were ignored.
14 March, 2014: After several calls and emails to the company, a technician came at 7:30pm and installed the cable modem. He didn't know the head and tail of internet and broadband configuration. He wasn't able to connect to the configuration site through Internet Explorer and Chrome but finally succeeded in connecting through Firefox and told me it usually works only with Firefox.
The technician connected to cable internet with the network cable, configured the WiFi modem and went away. After he left, I removed the network cable and that was it. The WiFi no longer works after I remove the cable.
It turns out that each time I want to use broadband, I have to login to the broadband dashboard and stay logged in. Also, I need to be on the computer with the network cable directly connected in order to login to broadband. I can remove the cable after logging in, however, the WiFi will stop working when my session times out.
It is a real pain to work with this internet since it require login in through the browser, with the network cable directly connected and stay logged in as long as I want to use internet.
14 March 2014: I was told by the technician that there is an option to get the login requirement removed. I have to call the customer support and request them. However, when I called the customer support, I was told to send an email with the same request.
I reported to Asianet that the internet no longer works unless I keep the network cable connected. That is not how I want to use Broadband.
March 15, 2014: I received a call asking about the situation. I told them I am unable to use the internet due to the requirement to login each time I want to use it and I can't connect to WiFi unless I connect with network cable first. They promised someone will visit my home as soon as possible and get the issues sorted out.
March 18, 2014: It has been about 3 weeks I am after the broadband people. I am still living with my unreliable BSNL WiMax and a Tata Photon+ data card.
Current status: After about 4 weeks of discussions, and with a customer support engineer troubleshooting the issue, we sorted out the problem with WiFi. It was some DNS settings on my computer that cause the problem.
However, there is no solution for getting the connection disconnected if I close the browser window in which I logged into my Asianet account. I need to login each time I want to connect to Asianet and should keep the browser tab/window open.
Read my experience after using Asianet for 3 months.
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