Alliance Broadband: How stable is it?

[ithehappy]

I know this might have been asked a lot of times before but I am asking this again just for the sake of having updated information rather than outdated ones.

Alliance finally providing their internet service where I live (it's a small town), until now there was no existence of them here, and so now they are here, I want to take it. But just as with any cable connection, the first question is, how stable/ consistent it is? I mean how much downtime will I have to face? Will the connection go kaput whenever there is a slight rain or thunderstorm? Alliance users from Kolkata kindly input here. Cause with other available connections here, like Meghbala, Tikona, Wishnet, I see a lot of a reports of downtime and long restoration time! Previously I heard that Allinace is better than them, but I want to hear it from the users now.

I am done with BSNL's ****, I was done a long time ago, but there was no option.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ithehappy]

Really no user of Alliance here?

 

[mitraark]

Alldepends upon the Local Cable Operator rather than Alliance, I use Wishnet and have seldom faced problems in the past few years, and that too was resolved really quickly after a call to their toll free number.

 

[ithehappy]

Yeah I know about Wishnet and all that, but I need to know about Alliance.

 

[kg11sgbg]

Yeah I know about Wishnet and all that, but I need to know about Alliance.

As per as I know,one of our Friend of @TDF whose name :-->[MENTION=20596]Ray[/MENTION] is a subscriber to ALLIANCE BROADBAND. You may PM for more info.
Of course whether he is active or not is a question.

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

I'll try to jot down few experiences which may help you decide.

1. I took it just for the peering facility. Now I can download torrents of around 30GB in an Hour.
2. Before this, I had 2Mbps 80GB Airtel BB. So now, after taking Alliance I didn't disconnected it, but lowered down the plan to 2Mbps 9GB as a backup.
3. Speed and reliability of Alliance is good now. I took it around 5 Years ago, and then it was very bad. I used to get 8KB/s download speed on my 512Kbps connection and most of the time I couldn't connect. But now it's not the same, infact much better.
4. No, it will not go down if it's raining. But yes, in case of thunderstorms they will shut down as the devices gets burnt. So an ADSL BB backup (Airtel / BSNL) is a must.
5. Except peering also, it offers promised speed. I have 1.5Mbps plan and yes it delivers the promised speed.
6. You may sometime experience slowdowns. Not a major issue but happens sometimes. I shift to Airtel that time.
7. Generally it doesn't goes down, but if it does, and if you complain, generally they come and fix within one hour except if something didn't happened with their switches. It takes around a day to fix.

So conclusion?
1. If you want low cost service with medium reliability take Alliance Broadband.
2. If you want high reliability and can pay anything for that or not interested in Peering services, take Airtel BB. They are extremely reliable. You may experience downtime once in a 2-3 months. In that case, once you complain they resolve it within 24 Hours.
3. If you want both High reliability and Peering services, take Alliance and keep an ADSL BB (Airtel / BSNL).

In my case, high reliability is must, that's why I was with Airtel BB after getting fed off from BSNL. Most of my deliverable's depends on Internet, infact I do not have any reason to turn on my PC if internet is not there. So for me a backup is must. But recently, I grew interest in downloading things and I hate waiting 2-3 days for it. As the size of almost every content has grown from few MB's to GB's now, I headed for the peering service. But ofcourse with a 24x7 backup of Airtel

Hope that helps you to decide Let me know in case you want to know anything else

 

[ithehappy]

Thanks kg11sgbg for mentioning that username, will try to PM him.

Thanks Krishnendu. Well from your comment it looks like that Alliance could be more than enough for me, but you did say that it will go out when thunderstorm occurs, that's not really good, but if it restores within a couple of hours then I am okay.

The thing is, budget is out of question here. I pay 2.5k already per month. If I were to take the Alliance I would have taken the 1399 one though, as it would match my current connection's speed, which is technically 2 mbps, but in reality never crossed 1.8, I am sure Alliance will give at least 1.8 mbps, if yes, then I am okay too. The problem is I don't think I will have a backup connection, I don't like too many things.

Airtel broadband is out of question for two reasons mostly, the first reason is I simply loathe that company, I know their mobile service is great and all that but with the kind of previous experience I had with them I am not touching them, and even if I were their fan I could not have taken it, cause its not available where I live, same with Reliance.

Stability is the main factor for me too. For past two days enough rain and thunderstorm have happened, this damn BSNL didn't go down for a single minute! That's why I am still with this *******s! But at the same time, in peak hours, aka office hours, one simply can't have 1.8 mbps, it hovers around 768-1200 kbps, and only after 5 pm or so the full 1.8 mbps comes back. And more or less once or twice per month the connection slows down, and that's a given, anyone with BSNL doesn't expect his connection to be stable for 30 days per month, so I am guessing that Alliance would not be any worse in that area. The only question now remains that how long it would take that connection to be restored, well, I am gonna talk with the local guy and see what he says, don't know how much reliability is on that though.

Thanks anyway once again.

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Thanks kg11sgbg for mentioning that username, will try to PM him.

Thanks Krishnendu. Well from your comment it looks like that Alliance could be more than enough for me, but you did say that it will go out when thunderstorm occurs, that's not really good, but if it restores within a couple of hours then I am okay.

That depends on your local cable operator. Service of these so called cable BB's are completely depending on how local cablewalahs handling it.

For E.g. On Sat, when it started raining everything was fine, but as soon as thumderstorms started, they switched off it in the evening. And the same is restored next morning (i.e. Sun). They could have easily turned it on at Night, but they didn't.

So, you see, it depends.

The thing is, budget is out of question here. I pay 2.5k already per month. If I were to take the Alliance I would have taken the 1399 one though, as it would match my current connection's speed, which is technically 2 mbps, but in reality never crossed 1.8, I am sure Alliance will give at least 1.8 mbps, if yes, then I am okay too. The problem is I don't think I will have a backup connection, I don't like too many things.

Well, yes you'll get the promised speed. But again, it depends on your local cablewallah. Because I have heard of many instances where the speed starts degrading if the no. of user increases. They divide it via a switch. They must be using QoS to limit bandwidth of each user but don't know why this happens.

Check #6, you may experience slowdowns sometimes. But it's not that major in case of me. It happens sometimes and very rare.

Airtel broadband is out of question for two reasons mostly, the first reason is I simply loathe that company, I know their mobile service is great and all that but with the kind of previous experience I had with them I am not touching them, and even if I were their fan I could not have taken it, cause its not available where I live, same with Reliance.

Stability is the main factor for me too. For past two days enough rain and thunderstorm have happened, this damn BSNL didn't go down for a single minute! That's why I am still with this *******s! But at the same time, in peak hours, aka office hours, one simply can't have 1.8 mbps, it hovers around 768-1200 kbps, and only after 5 pm or so the full 1.8 mbps comes back. And more or less once or twice per month the connection slows down, and that's a given, anyone with BSNL doesn't expect his connection to be stable for 30 days per month, so I am guessing that Alliance would not be any worse in that area. The only question now remains that how long it would take that connection to be restored, well, I am gonna talk with the local guy and see what he says, don't know how much reliability is on that though.

If reliability is the 1st thing that matters to you, I'd suggest keep a backup if going for Cable Broadband.

Thanks anyway once again.

You are welcome I'd say try to enquire in your locality. As these cable BB's totally depends on how local cablewallah's handle it, I'd suggest asking on net won't matter much. As peoples from diff. area will have diff. views. I'd suggest to take views of peoples from your locality instead.

Another thing I can suggest is, the monsoon is going on...so just take the connection without disconnecting the old one in the very beginning. Experience it for a month and then decide. If needed take a plan of low price. The installation charges are from 1000/- - 1500/-. Depends on local cablewallah again. I paid 1000/-, but one of my friend from Behala paid 1500/-.

So if that Rs. 1000/- doesn't matter much, I'd say check it out personally.

 

[ithehappy]

Thanks buddy, I will talk with the local cablewallah and see. I am also talking with other users, but most of them are using Wishnet but Alliance, and those are saying they are happy with the service, but the usage pattern varies a lot, I mean most of them don't/won't really care if internet goes down for an hour or six, but I will, that's the problem.

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Thanks buddy, I will talk with the local cablewallah and see. I am also talking with other users, but most of them are using Wishnet but Alliance, and those are saying they are happy with the service, but the usage pattern varies a lot, I mean most of them don't/won't really care if internet goes down for an hour or six, but I will, that's the problem.

The same happened with me too

When I asked few local people about the service they said it's very good, excellent speed and all. Truth is 90% of them don't know what's their plan. Couldn't tell me the Night Benefits and all. But luckily few of my local childhood friends have this connection too. Finally verified from them about the downtime. They are not tech savyy too, but when I asked about the downtime they clarified.

 

[baban4u]

The cable Broadband lines in Calcutta can be pain. Be ready for frequent connection issues.
I have used BSNL for while and now using SitiBroadband. The only plus point for Cable Broaband is that it is cheap and the speed is better that BSNL.

 

[avinashn73]

How is their service now? Am planning to take new connection of alliance broadband.
Location - pranashree, kolkata
.
Wish net nd tikona ( wireless) also offering their service.
Please suggest.

 

[masterkd]

Using Alliance for 4+ years in two different locations and I am quite satisfied. Much better than my 3 years experience with BSNL. But their service depends on location. However most of the places it is good. Some places it is marvelous. But be ready for occasional fights with local operators and call center representatives.

 

[avinashn73]

Am planning to take premium plus @1150 rs /month. It gives promised speed in happy hour or not????

At same cost tikona(wireless) offering 120gb/4mbps. But bqs of peering nd happy hour speed; am on alliance side.