Some highlights:

• Wireless market grows 11.74% and total wireless subscriber base stands 233.62 million
• Internet subscriber base reaches 10.36 million
• Broadband subscriber base reaches  3.13 million users. Rate of growth in this quarter is 17.23%
• There are 57.83 million wireless Internet subscribers (capable of accessing Internet through mobile handset (GSM/ CDMA))
• 54% of ISPs failed to meet the benchmark of service provisioning/activation within 2 weeks

Comments

• July 17, 2008, devki nandan commented: i thankful to u for providing information but ur information is too old if possible then provide latest information

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With a user base of 25.2 million users, India came in at the 8th position. We (me included) keep whining about how Internet penetration in India is still negligible, but if you look at it from a global perspective, even with the pitiful penetration, we managed to come in at number 8. If the penetration increases by only 10% this year (wishful thinking), we’ll very easily jump two places in this list.

If you see the above penetration in terms of percentage of population, the table looks like below:

US - 53 %

china - 7.2 %

japan - 42.3%

germany - 40%

uk - 53.3%

france - 43.2%

south korea - 53%

India - 2.23%

And you can see exactly why China and India offer such a huge room for growth. The world’s most populous nations and the Internet penetration is still in single digits. Thanks to the forward looking communist regime, China is making tremendous progress in the Internet front (disregarding the online censorship, ‘great firewall’ etc.). Sadly, such aggressive efforts are still missing in India. The Indian Government’s initiative last year - “2007 - year of the broadband” was a big disappointment. Subscriber base grew at a much slower rate than projected. We need to act & act fast.

Another interesting slide from the TC post was how home grown players in several countries are more popular than the Internet biggies.

Of course, the common thread is that all of the above are non-English speaking countries.

For the Indian market I’d say that the top 3 would be Yahoo India, Rediff and Google (all Google network sites included). In fact, a similar trend has also been observed in the Indian Web 2.0 market - global Web 2.0 companies have captured more Indian users than home grown players.I guess majority of the current, online Indian population is English speaking and that explains why they’ve latched on to the Western Internet portals.
As more non English speaking Indian users come online, do you think it will tip the usage in favor of home grown sites like Guruji and OneIndia ?

Comments

• March 23, 2008, Cyril Gupta commented: Excellent review. I think there is plenty of growth for content in local languages, but rediff may not be the winner. I expect a sort of micro-localization to occur, in which the winners will be local companies run by people who have a deeper understanding of the local culture and expectations. It will be interesting to see what really happens. :)
• March 23, 2008, Jagannath commented: India has sheer numbers :D but if quality and speed of connections were even given small weightage India would have completely vanished from any stats... so pathetic are our broadband connections :(
• March 27, 2008, Jay commented: Anyway, I don't often see a lot of good coming out of the internet usage that is being done. People can use something like orkut for good, but all they do is put up their rock star-like photos and have found another forum for gossiping.
• March 28, 2008, dDude commented: excellent review - i feel india is at an advantage right now cause it has very less broadband users compared to other big nations. this proves there is a huge potential to grow and even with this less numbers we are rocking the internet space. imagine what it would be when broadband and wireless access is easily available in india?
• March 31, 2008, pranav commented: @jagannath - I agree..this report doesnt include the speed / quality of the connections. If so, Japan and S Korea would be topping the charts.. and India might not have appeared in the list at all. @cyril - you present an interesting perspective -- my question is -- will the Internet penetration ever drill down to those levels ? @dDude - yes..there is immense room for growth.

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How about starting an affordable conceirge service for everyday, household services ?

For instance, my friend was having a plumbing problem at his place.  The plumber agreed to drop by the day after around 2 pm. My friend decided towork from home so that he would be around when the plumber showed up. The plumber, of course, failed to show up. Repeated calls to the plumber’s mobile were in vain. The same thing repeated itself the next day. Finally, on the 4th day of the ordeal, the plumber showed up for the job, much to my friends relief.

Towards the end, my friend was so exasperated that I dont think he would have hesitated to pay a bit extra for some prompt service. His gripe was - “Kaash ek call mein kaam khatam ho jaata”.

And just like him, I dont think there’s a dearth of other folks (who’re strapped for time and super stressed) who’ll shell up a bit extra for added convenience.

I wont be surprised if such conceirge services already exist for the super rich and elite.  But such a service could be pretty successful amongst the IT demographic as well. And the service can be made affordable, considering that it can make up for the cost in volume.

Comments

• February 18, 2008, Saurabh Garg commented: Hi Pranav, Interesting idea. In fact Kishore Biyani promoted Future Group has already started it and they call it Mr. Right. A friend ran a similar service in Delhi with limited success and had to eventually shut down. Lets see if Kishore Biyani can crack the magic formula. Warm Regards, SG
• February 18, 2008, pranav commented: thanks for providing the info saurabh..as you said, it'd be interesting to see how the retail czar cracks this market. what were some of the problems that you friend ran into ?
• February 19, 2008, Chandoo commented: hey Pranav, nice idea. I think this one is already in implementation in few IT companies in Chennai (I am sure it is in other cities as well). We have something called ServiceSquare where they do some free services like (check dropping, booking movie tickets) and some paid services (like rly ticket booking, deposits, plumbing, house shifting, looking for maid / electrician etc.) The charges are reasonable and once competition comes in I think the prices should subside.
• February 23, 2008, Vishnu commented: Dear friends, We are offering Plumbimg, Electrical maintenance, House painting / Car-Rentals / Courier / Electricity Bill payments / Property tax payments / BSNL / Mobile Bill payments etc., (Paid services) and cheque drop in Drop Boxes / ATMs (free of cost). We have House-keeping & Security Service Departments to take cae of all related services in Hyderabad. Please contact us at admin@vishnu-consultants.com.
• February 25, 2008, shyam commented: You could also use this website www.homecrayons.com Its anew one I cam across while trying to buy some used furniture. They have a section where you could list your expert services or find one. hope this helps
• February 27, 2008, Sudhanshu commented: You may like www.justdial.com too. If you search for plumber and give a locality, they'll give you the contact numbers of all plumbers around that locality. And moreover they have a presence in several cities all over India.
• June 17, 2008, salonika commented: good idea but it is good if we offer and treat all types of help at decent rates and as if they are professional workers in their fields of work.. perhaps the helpers will also be motivated to get on the bandwagon.. otherwise what's in it for them ? we pay $100/time for a 2000 sq ft home for cleaning..and are just average IT folks in the US. Our home is not fancy either. it is'nt about money really but they work hard so we treat them well and they don't let us down. thanx salonika

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I’d couple the broadband issue with the “reliable low cost telecommunications” and make the title more generic like “reliable, pervasive communication infrastructure”.

Broadband in India is still lacking on several fronts. For starters, based on my conversations with several folks, getting a broadband connection is a struggle in itself. It is unreliable and not “always-on” in the true sense. Frequent disruptions are a common thing. Only 20,000 new broadband connections were added in India in October 2007.

From what I hear, things are getting better. But as long as broadband is not pervasive and ‘always-on’, it still remains a big impediment to the innovation ecosystem - at least to the consumer Internet industry.

Comments

• January 2, 2008, Amit Kumar commented: bernard's post is bullshit he does not understand about indian scenario. Has he looked where is the VC money going? there is no early stage VC fund available in india. India is country where angel investor look for cash flows in your balance sheet
• January 2, 2008, pranav commented: Amit Thats a very valid point...Seed / angel funding is still very small in India. Sramana Mitra has addressed this topic several times..hopefully the scenario gets better this year.. -p
• January 4, 2008, bernard lunn commented: Thanks for tracking to my article. Re Broadband, yes I was less focussed on domestic consumer internet plays and the lack of broadband at home is a limitation for those. However compare to 10 years ago and you have a) low cost mobile and b) low cost bandwidth for businesses (call center etc). This is good enough to operate on the world stage. That was not true 10 years ago. Re lack of VC, I really do disagree. Sure you have to work to get and thats true in the US as well and that is as it should be. Good article here on this: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/BizNext_Gen-next/By_invitation_Bill_Davidow/articleshow/2661507.cms
• January 6, 2008, amit commented: Bernard, The article does not convince me either. I have first hand experience of dealing with angel investors. Look at the portfolio companies of angel investors you will get the rough idea, except minglebox, i don't think so any other company has got early stage funding without being revenue positive.

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The service is likely to cost around 2000 Rs. for the 8 Mbps pipe. Apparently a pay per use pricing scheme is also in the works. So, you can order the extra bandwidth as and when you need (and you get charged for it), while rest of the time, you can use your 256 kbps / 2 Mbps connection. A la bandwidth-on-demand.

via ET

If anyone has any additional details about the 8 Mbps pipe from Airtel, please let me know.

In the meanwhile, compare this - the median real-time download speed in US is 1.9 Mbps.

Comments

• October 10, 2007, Madhu commented: I have a good experice with reliance broadband itself. I have opted for the 2MBPS/4GB which is around 750/month. The speed which I am getting is always more than 2MB and reachng to 3.5MB/s some time...The download rate also coming to 500KB/s sometimes.... More details read on http://reliance-wimax.blogspot.com/
• October 12, 2007, Aalaap commented: 8Mbps for Rs. 2,000 per month? Where do I sign?
• October 12, 2007, pranav commented: i guess the service is going to be launched..
• November 1, 2007, Ebrahim Mafooz commented: I just checked with the airtel website and found no traces of the 8MBPS line and as for now they offer unlimited 512KBPS for Rs.1999/month. Will have to wait for some time before it goes online i guess Ebrahim Mafooz www.diginet.com
• February 8, 2008, Jeeten commented: Btw, the mean spped if we talk abt.. its 61 MBps in Japan.. Note the capitalized MB in "MBps"
• July 11, 2008, Praveen commented: I don't think that it is possible to give 8 MBPS broadband @ cheap cost. BSNL and other private providers are fooling people in the name of broadband access. Visit this link for more info http://pkmcybernetics.net/document.php?id=1

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Day by day, it looks like every big Indian firm, who is sitting on a pile of some extra cash, is applying for a telecom license. You have the real estate companies (DLF, Parsvnath, IndiaBulls Real Estate Ltd., Unitech Ltd.). And now, with Russian company Sistema acquiring Shyam Telelink, even foreign players are jumping in.

While some of the license applicants maybe serious about their telecom foray, I think majority are aiming to get a piece of the pie - and then sellout at a premium at a later time.

Just like DoT announced that no new applications will be accepted for mobile licenses starting Oct 1, at this rate, such an announcement should come soon for the telecom sector as well.

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As per the release, the wireless subscriber base in India has reached 201.29 million users with 8.31 million users added in August.

Broadband connections (>= 256 Kbps) have reached 2.56 million. There was an addition of 90,000 users in August 2007.

Detailed report here (PDF file).

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Key points of the report:

* eMarketer projects 3.2 million broadband connections in India by end of 2007, with a penetration rate of 1.6%

* Instead of the Indian Govt. projections of 20 million broadband users by 2010, eMarketer projects that India will have only 10.5 million broadband connections by 2011

* While Comscore Networks puts the number of Internet users at 22.8 million (discounting access from cyber cafes), eMarketer pegs the Internet user base at 33.2 million at January 2007 (eMarketer definition of Internet user as someone who has accessed Internet at least once in the last 30 days)

* With 2.3% of Indians going online, India has the lowest penetration rate in the Asia Pacific region

* With the Internet user base growing at 33% (one of the highest in the world), India holds the maximum promise

Again, the entire story here.

Update: It looks like the government is taking notice of the poor broadband penetration. Aggressive, corrective actions need to be taken if the broadband projections for next year are to be met. In line with that, TRAI has invited comments (PDF doc) from interested stakeholders on the growth of broadband in India.

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While still on the road, I had to make time for this post - more so, I felt compelled to write this post.

As part of the latest issue, BusinessWorld has a great cover story on the state of broadband adoption in India. Besides stating the obvious - that broadband penetration in India is miserable - the story also tries to uncover the reasons for the poor adoption. That is one of the things I have always found missing from most of the other broadband related ’studies’.

Here’re some of the interesting pieces from the BW story:

India has 2.52 million high-speed connections, compared to 60 million and 55 million for the US and China, respectively. At least 50 per cent connections in India are with corporates; consumer broadband is barely 1.3 million. But there is a sleight of hand even in these dismal numbers. India follows an archaic definition of broadband, using the term to describe any Internet connection that moves data at more than 256 kbps (kilobits per second). This is not enough to download movies, use Internet telephones, etc. To the rest of the world, a broadband connection must be at least 2 mbps (megabits per second). By that definition, India has only about 400,000 high-speed lines.

Only 400,000 high speed residential connections !!

Amongst other reasons, the story puts the blame on the service providers - BSNL, VSNL, Airtel, Reliance:

Ironically, India’s optic fibre capacity — the pipes that deliver broadband — far exceeds current usage. At least 40 per cent of the 700,000-km optic fibre laid has not been operationalised by telecom companies, according to Trai.

While Reliance has laid the most — 100,000 km — optic fibre, the largest mobile company Bharti Airtel has just 40,000 km. Others have less than 10,000 km each. They continue to drag their feet in reaching the optic fibre to the customer and their offerings remain limited to a handful of geographical pockets in and around the top dozen cities. Instead, their investments and management are largely focused on the highly profitable mobile business.

The reason, as Bharti Airtel’s President Atul Bindal says, is that “broadband equipment costs are much higher than mobile equipment”. Every optic fibre line to the consumer costs telcos at least $750 (Rs 30,000) while mobile phone networks can be set up for as little as $90 (Rs 3,600) a line. “Broadband is a lot more challenging,” says Prakash Bajpai, CEO of broadband business at Reliance Communications. “Here you need to lay fibre, get permissions from municipal authorities, housing societies, etc. In mobile there are no such issues.”

High cost for broadband is also a deterrent for higher adoption:

What’s more, broadband providers such as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Reliance charge Rs 3,300 per month for a 2-mbps connection — itself a rare commodity. That is nearly five times what a similar line costs in Japan and South Korea, and more than three times what it costs in the US.Little wonder, then, that in the first six months of this year, India has barely added half a million subscribers (256 kbps). In comparison, China is adding 1.5 million new subscribers, most of them using 1-2 mbps lines, every month.

I really enjoyed reading the story — instead of hyping the numbers like some of the other studies / reports, it paints a more realistic picture.  All hope is not lost though - one look at the figure (1) below and you’ll notice that though India has miserable numbers when it comes to broadband penetration, it has the highest rate of growth (93.39% for Q1 2007) for broadband connections in the world.  Something to cheer about ?

Give it a read here and let me know what you think.

Comments

• August 27, 2007, Ashish Jain commented: Thats really an eyeopener. I didn't read that issue of BW, but the way you have summarized everything is neat.
• August 28, 2007, rAm commented: I am not surprised by this. I also don't see any improvement in the situation. I stay in bangalore so called silicon valley of India and struggling to get a good broadband(read atleast 128kbps and full time on) connection for over two months. Imagine the state in other cities.!! None of the companies are interested to serve the customer, they somehow treat the broadband as a step child (I get a hang of the reason from your post). But what I don't understand is why should only the telcos provide broadband. Pranav any inputs here?? What needs to be done is allow independent ISP's to provide the connection. Also regulation needs to be brought on to make broadband penetration cheaper and easier (pus wimax based stuff, make the cabling stuff centralised, etc).
• October 24, 2007, Rahul commented: checkout the Reliance wimax connection. It is pretty faster now...More details availble here. www.reliance-wimax.blogspot.com

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These are the findings of a paper to be published on Wednesday - brought out jointly by ASSOCHAM and Frosh & Sullivan and aptly titled “Broadband in India“. The paper also correctly cites poor PC penetration in India as a contributing factor. Besides PC adoption, localized content and WiMAX will be key enablers of broadband in India.

Based on this startling realization, the Indian Government has decided to re-allocate funds from the Universal Services Fund (USF) to meet the target projections of 20 million broadband users by 2010. R. Bandhopadhyay, Secretary of Ministry of Communications and IT, reassured that all the target projections will be met by tweaking an redefining the govt. policies.

This and more of his keynote address at the ASSOCHAM organized “Broadband 2007: Connecting the Unconnected” conference here.

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Yes, India’s market is blazing hot right now and ‘Go East’ is the new mantra.
There’s no denying that India is hot - but how hot exactly is the consumer Internet space in India ?

The Comscore India report put the Indian Internet penetration rate at 3% with the total user base at 22 million.

That pegs the total Indian population at 733.33 million.

As per the latest Indian census report, the urban population accounts for 27.8% of the total Indian population.

Assuming India’s population is 733.33 million, this puts the urban population at ~203 million (27.8%).

Now, as per the latest TRAI figures (PDF file), broadband subscriber stands at ~2 million.

Getting real that broadband is still a distant dream in rural areas in India, the 2 million can be safely assumed to be contributed from urban areas.

So, 2 million of ~203 million urbanites have broadband - roughly 1%. Thus, broadband penetration in India can be assumed at about 1% (if you calculate it for the actual Indian population of ~ 1 Billion, the penetration rate will dip way further down).

Do these figures give enough incentives for VC’s to invest in the Indian consumer Internet space ?

Let us briefly look at the major VC investments in Indian consumer Internet companies:

Sequoia India - Guruji, Travelguru, MingleBox, ApnaLoan, Shaadi

Helion - Komli, MakeMyTrip

Matrix Partners - seventymm

Norwest Venture Partners - Yatra, Sulekha

Canaan Partners - bharatmatrimony

NEA IndoUS Venture Fund - Via / Flight Raja

KPCB - cleartrip, naukri

If you look closely, you’ll notice that majority of these investments are either into travel portals or existing, prominent portals (shaadi, sulekha, naukri etc.).

Very few are actually “startups” in the true sense.

Well, okay - the penetration rate is miserable. But look at the growth rate - 33%, fastest in the world as per Comscore. Yes, true..the growth rate is stupendous. But the growth rate does not actually depict broadband / “always-on” usage - the piece that is key to the proliferation of consumer Internet space.

Is that in any way, affecting the VC investment decisions in the Indian consumer Internet segment ? Should we be betting on the double digit growth rate or be wary of the poor penetration rate ?

Note: I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible. in case you notice any errors, kindly give me some leeway - its 3 in the morning as i write this

Comments

• July 15, 2007, satpal commented: Nice analysis Pranav.You could have made this look more interesting by adding some economic aspect like size of online advertising (life blood of present day internet ventures) and revenue and cash flow of existing ventures (reddif,indiatimes,info edge). I would like to add that from consumer point of you indian internet market is very cold.I hardly see any entreprenuer comming with local idea with global standard execution.Too many me-toos donot make it a exiting place. ANothey way to look at this is that indian internet market is vigin. Tt is more open then for experimentaion then any other market.No visible brands.No great success stories. Problem with indian internet market is its user base.User base have not reached to a critical mass can lift (and hence reward) a (original) idea overnight.To be successful in indina it isnecessary to have both online and offline presence for whcih you need lots of capital.This create a chicken and egg like situation.You will not have traction becoz u lack offline presence and u would not like to have offline presence till u get proof of concept online and get a VC to fund your expension. IMHO we dnot need VCs we need ideas and people who can execute those ideas to the prefection.
• July 15, 2007, pranav commented: Satpal, very true - the travel portals that have been so successful - these have combined the offline - online model well. To reach the 'critical mass', you need to go offline as well :-)
• July 15, 2007, pranav commented: Let me see if I can come up with an interesting way to plot the dimensions of advertising and revenues against the figures from this post...
• July 20, 2007, Indian govt plans action to meet projections of 20 million broadband connections commented: [...] Indian govt plans action to meet projections of 20 million broadband connections Tag: India broadbandIndia had a target of 3 million, 9 million and 20 million broadband Internet users by 2005, 2007 and 2010 respectively. In contrast, current broadband figures stand at 2.5 million users.  The gap is expected to widen to 10 million by 2010. So, instead of the projected 20 million broadband users, India will have only 10 million users. As noted in an earlier post, penetration currently is less than 1%. [...]
• March 28, 2008, dhingana commented: very interesting read....i have a strong feeling that in 2008 more investments are going to be in the social networking domain...

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via ET 

Comments

• August 16, 2007, Rohit commented: Hi, this is big deal with the Sify, one who has strong Skilled persons and one has Too large Fiber network!!. Now , we can just imagine what will happend...!!!

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• More than half of the Indian online population comes from outside the eight largest cities. In other words, Tier II and III cities.
• 66% of users came from SEC A and B classes in 2006. They now account for only 56% of the users
• 19-35 age group comprised 76% of the users in 2006. In 2007, they account for only 67% of the total users
• 21% came from an IT background in 2006. In 2007, only 17% hailed from an IT background
• 78% of users still have primary access to Internet from their workplace. Access from homes is increasing
• 28% of the Internet users owned a car
• 34% of Internet users owned a credit card while 90% have mobile phones
• 59% of the users browsed in English in 2006, while 41% browse in English in 2007

Of course, the biggest highlight of the study - India has 30 million Internet users.

via ET.

Update: AgencyFaqs has additional stuff on brand perception and recall for major websites and also the market share in the verticals market.

Comments

• June 14, 2007, Part two of the India Online 2007 report commented: [...] In an earlier post, I summarized key points from the first part of the ‘India Online 2007′ report by JuxtConsult. Some interesting points from the second installment of the series: [...]
• July 12, 2007, Puneet commented: Wonder how authentic figures are these! www.InternetWorldStats.com puts India's online community at over 42 million, as against this JuxtConsult study that pegs it at 30 million (and charges you $3500 for telling us this!) Any suggestions on which one to trust?
• July 12, 2007, pranav commented: Puneet, Personally, I find TRAI's figures most reliable http://www.startupdunia.com/2007/06/18/india-internet-statistics/ http://www.trai.gov.in/trai/upload/PressReleases/449/pr17apr07no35.pdf although TRAI figures are only for Internet subscribers (doesnt include those who access Internet at cyber cafe and at work). None the less, at least, its reliable.

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The same day, VSNL has announced the launch of WiMAX for enterprise customers in Bangalore.

Comments

• June 8, 2007, Shubham commented: Great news, unfortunately why only bangalore :(
• July 10, 2007, A.Tharunkaanth commented: Hai folks if you want to know more about reliance wi max at Bangalore please call me in 98863 49624
• July 19, 2007, jos commented: Cool man !! good news to hear ..well is it available in all the places in the city ?? so no DSL any more ...so no digging of roads ...
• July 30, 2007, Senthil commented: Dear All, I got the wimax connection on 13 June 2007 and I used the wimax max connection only 4 days, After that i am not able to connect the network. The speed is very slow in the four days and also the customer service is waste. I got bored to make complaints about the poor connectivity and speed. The technical people doesn't know anything and they are not telling any reason about the problem. If i made a complaint on one day, they are giving one complaint reference number after that no one is coming to solve the problem, but they are closed the complaint without solving the problem. Finally i am not using the connection now. In my experience i found the following. 1. The wimax service is not fully established in Bangalore. 2. Poor customer support 3. Reliance doesn't have a experienced technical persion to solve the issues. 4. Don't go for Reliance Wimax otherwise don't sign the acceptance form without checking the connectivity and speed. This post is for who is planning to go for the wimax connection in Bangalore. Its for your awareness nothing else. Thanks Senthil
• July 31, 2007, Deepak commented: Hi Folks, I am now worried by applying to RELIANCE WIMAX. I applied for a RELIANCE WIMAX connection past 2 weeks. I still havent got any connecion yet though. I am tired of calling the executives each and every day atleast for 3 times. I get a tailor made answer as “Your connection is under process, you will get the connection in next 3 days”. Now a days no one is responding to my call at all. If I try from other no. they give me the above mentioned response :( I dont know when will i be getting my connection. Even if i get my connection in next couple of days, I am worried whether the installation process will be successfull or not, if not again how bad do I need to struggle. More over i am not getting a direct contact to RELIANCE. If any one can help me on providing the solution please feel free to contact me on 9900600356 (any time)
• August 3, 2007, Srikanth commented: Hi, I am also facing the problem which deepak has mentioned. I have paid for the connection 2 weeks before and nobody has turned up till now. No direct number for these people. I am fed up going behind these people. No proper answer from them. I am surprised to see how a organisation like Reliance can have so poor customer care here in Bangalore.
• August 6, 2007, Anup commented: I had booked a connection at Bangalore, one month back. They do installation thru 3rd parties. Those guys came 2 weeks after booking and tried for sometime. They were not able to make the connection work and went back saying someone from reliance will come and do the installation. Since then nothing has happened despite chasing them all the time. I am being told its a teething problem and they haven’t been able to install due to a downtime. One month of downtime, interesting! They have a namesake customer service, who can only provide you some numbers and ask you to call these local sales reps. These local reliance people will not even respond and even if they do it will be to say that they are not the concerned person. You will be made to run from pillar to post and to no avail. I totally agree with Dominic. I am sure, you will at god’s mercy if you take this connection. Don’t ever trust Reliance.
• August 6, 2007, suman kumar commented: Thet gave me reliance connection within 2 weeks, but since then its not been working. I am fed up of calling the customer care. They say that IP address is wrong, technical people are looking into it. Please wait for a day. Its been 2 weeks since i got net connection.
• August 6, 2007, kiran commented: i'd applied for a connection 2 weeks back. after repeated follows up with the guy who took the payment from me, i got some technical guys to come down to install it. they've been trying for the past week now. 6 antennas, 4 visits, 8 drills (for the nails to hold the antennas) and 4 half days of my leave wasted they tell me today that its not feasible to install it here. personally i feel they've got very ill equipped technical staff to handle the installations and add to it the ever 'reliable' reliance network. god save me. i think i'd opt for a bsnl broadband after this experience.
• August 7, 2007, Tharunkaanth commented: Hai folks, As u all aware any new technology comes it will have all the bottleneck.Like that in bangalore also now and the positive/negative feelings about wi max.since i am also providing the same to differant people i know what are the developments happened and what is going to happened.Please wait and receive the new technologty.U can call me in 9886349624 if u want a connection
• August 8, 2007, Deepak D commented: Hi there, Seems we all have been prey to Reliance's good old tricks of duping customers. Even I had applied for the Reliance WiMAX connection, which the the third party guys dropped in promptly after 3weeks to do the feasibility, only to find almost no signal reaching my point. They informed me that Reliance would re-fund my money before leaving.After about a week's time one of their customer care(lot of care indeed)..called me to inform that my feasibility testing is due and and that they would be sending someone down...I had to tell that poor chap that my feasibility had been done and that the result was 'negative signal'....to which he responded that the money would be refunded in that case...well its 2months now and I'm yet to see any signs of the money getting back. Regards, Deepak D
• August 8, 2007, Manish commented: I had applied for the Wimax connection last week even paid Rs 562, yesterday when I called up to enquire the status I was told that something has changed and that customer reference number will also change & that he would get back to me. Now this person is not reachable over phone (9980680004). Shady way to do business. cheers Manish
• August 8, 2007, ankush commented: hi, I think everyone overhere is facing what they might have experienced before because of the poor customer service because of luring outsourcing technique of the mastermind called reliance. Everything said and done, i think most of us dont have an option as it is cost efficient. Why i am saying all this :-)....because even i have made the same mistake...Anyways can some please give me a feedback on the 150KPBS unlimited option of reliance...is it actually upto the mark or not.... THANK YOU
• August 8, 2007, Partha commented: Hi, I also apply for Reliance WiMAX 300kbps unlimited connection about 20 days back. In the first attempt, there is no signal in my residence area. The Reliance technical folks promised to try again after 10 days. I could not understand the funda behind the same. Cheers Partha
• August 8, 2007, Sujit commented: Hi folks. I am planning to opt for Reliance WiMax internet connection. Have enquired about the plans and I feel the 999/month scheme with unlimited data download looks apt for me. I stay at BTM I stage and would like to know about experiences with this connection at this place. Please BTM guys/gals guide as this is the only hope left for me to get an internet connectivity!!! --Sujit
• August 8, 2007, Deepak commented: Hi folks, Few Reliance executives had called me and promised me that i'll be getting connection within 15 days of the submission of application by the executive who took my application. The executive from WEBLINER collected my application on 19th July 07 but submitted on 23rd July 07. His name is VASU. I have sent few e mails to concerned contacts. But still I have nt received my connection. One of the Reliance executive had called and promised me that i'll be getting connection on high priority, still there are 2 days left to complete 15 days (from 23rd July 07), lets see whats going to happen. I still have confidence on Reliance and their employees. I would leave it to them to maintain these hopes in me, if they do not get me a connection in next two days, i would definately be depressed :( and loose hopes on Reliance forever. My details are Deepak G - Expanded in application as Deepak Gopal Rao CAF no. is 13010012435578 mob no. is 9900600356. Can anyone please help me in getting my connection?
• August 9, 2007, Lokesh commented: I applied for Reliance WIMAX on 30-Jul. Till 8-Aug-2007, no one contacted me. Then I called the office, and they told me that it will take 14 working days. Let's hope they keep their promise. :) and I get the connection soon.
• August 10, 2007, Kundan commented: Hi ppl, I also applied for th e WiMax Connection in Rajarajeshwari Nagar. This locality is having limited number of Broadband ISP, that also extremely expensive. I contacted RRG N/W, they were asking for 5k for installation(Oof wat a monopoly). Then i shifted my focus to sify but i don't think they have good connectivity here. @ third stage i was thinking to get a dailup connection. But thanx to Reliance they have cum up with WiMax. It may take time but atleast they will this break this monopoly.
• August 16, 2007, Deepak commented: Hey Folks, I got my connection, the speed is really awesome even if i have selected 150 Kbps, no problems as yet. If at all if you want to get a Broadband connection, then I suggest please go for RELIANCE WIMAX. Thanks a lot Reliance. I am very happy with it now
• August 16, 2007, diconnected commented: There are initial problems in setting up the Reliance system (I had the equipment lying around for 3 weeks) but if it works it's surely better than the DSL connection I had. The major problem is with the ops guys reliance has hired who do not understand even the basic cabling from the modem to your PoE adaptor. You need to shout and threaten a bit to get things together It's better than waiting for BSNL connection for more than 6 months :)
• August 22, 2007, Renish Ladani commented: i don't understand why reliance providing 300 kbps while most of the other service provider provides like 256 kbps, 512 kbps, what is reason behind selecting 300 kbps.
• August 29, 2007, Nalin commented: Hi folks ...So far the service from reliance Wimax has been PATHETIC ( ill call Pathetic as an understatement ) Its been 3 weeks and it was only working for 4 days .... since then its down .. and not connecting ........ and the worst part is their service desk ... bunch of stupid, dumbest of the people they can get who try to fake an accent so mch ... but wen it comes to the real thing ,.... no words .. only false assurances of gettin the thing fixed asap ..... and that asap never happens ......!! i wonder how come reliance is still operating in india .. wherein they keep showing a similar face in their all areas in customer service !!!
• August 31, 2007, binita commented: Hi guys , Can anyone help me in getting the reliance customer care no ? Even i had applied for wimax , and its been almost 1 month , nothing has happened till now , moreover , I dont want to trust reliance , their sales executive , neither the installation personnel say k they dont know what is their customer care no , sales guy goes to the extent of saying k i can not get my money back , even i opt to cancel my application , this attitude itself is frustarting, so please , if anyone knows how to go about cancelling my application , pls help me , or atleast give me their customer care no.
• September 2, 2007, yogesh commented: Hey its 022-30338787., they done have one yet in blr
• September 8, 2007, A.Tharunkaanth commented: Hai Let me say my sincere thanks to Mr Deepak since he expressed his happiness of using wimax.I request all the bloggers to intimate when they have any positive points too in blogs.Other wise it will be biosed.Now reliance is giving the wimax only it's 100% signal .They have improved a lot.
• September 20, 2007, Vijay commented: Mr. Tharunkaanth you please dont talk about the positives. Ive submitted the application to Irfan on 27th of July ans still no connection and no refund. Ppl beware there is lotsa black dealing going on. Im not the first one who lost 564 and lost the dignity dealing with these scammers.
• September 21, 2007, theja commented: Hi, R - WiMax is not working continuously for more than 3 hours. Don't go with it , if you don't have patience. Can some body tell me how to get IP from DHCP servers.? Always showing DHCP server not reachable?
• September 21, 2007, arun commented: Do you guys want to know the full form of CDMA the telephone service started by reliance first in india, the same guys providing WiMax, well then visit this link and know what CDMA means read the first three lines of the blog post and you will know what CDMA is for..... then decide if you want WiMax from this ISP.....
• September 21, 2007, arun commented: HEHEHEHE YOU PEOPLE HAVE TO READ THIS, THIS BLOG POST TAKES THE CAKE. Guys listen to this i called up one M/s Reliable enterprises for the reliance WiMax connection, got their phone number from this link - http://convergence.in/blog/2007/06/05/reliance-wimax-in-bangalore-up-and-running/ i asked them for a demo, and they said that they do not have a WiMax connection to give a demo. I asked them why they do not have a demo and they said that in their area they do not have coverage - NO SIGNALS. Here we have a company selling WiMax connections who themselves do not have network coverage, then you only imagine the plight of us consumers. Basically we are all BAKRAS for these companies who test their product on us………….. CAreful guys 9 out of 10 reviews are negative for Reliance WiMax BroadBand, stick to something tried and trusted such as BSNL or AirTel. On a particular post on mouthshut.com someone had said that the BSNL customer care is better than reliance, so now you onyl think how their services are. Even they are bad in billing also, some of my friends are having issues with their mobile phone billing. You still want to take a connection, I wish you all the best.
• September 24, 2007, La'dida commented: DON'T TAKE A RELIANCE CONNECTION!!! IT SUCKS. I moved to BTM 1st stage and I my old Airtel broadband couldn't be carried over here. I decided to opt for the Reliance WiMax connection. To start with, the folks we spoke to said it'd take 3-4 weeks for the connection to set up since there was a "HUGE DEMAND". It's now been 4 days since I got the connection and 4/5 times, it simple doesn't connect. The customre service guys are pathetic; they can't speak English and keep saying that my details aren't in the database. Their technical troubleshotting skills are worse than a blind mouse's. They direct you to the sales co-ordinator for everything and this person in all probability doesn't exist. I am now waiting to disconnect this service.
• September 26, 2007, Madhu commented: I need help on installing Wimax on Windows 98. Reliance has hired 3rd party guys to install. These guys are not technical guys. They came home did the wiring and installed the Antenna. They checked the connection on their laptop and activated my account. They could not configure my system because i have Win 98. Can somebody please email me the procedure to configure Wimax on my Windows 98 computer. I did configure as advised by the customer support, but my system is not receiving ip address from Reliance server. My questions are: 1) How do i confirm my lan card recognises the adapter provided my reliance 2) Is my lan card working fine 3) Is my Antenna receiving signals 4) Why am i not getting ip address from reliance server 5) Anything else i need to know
• September 26, 2007, Sandeep commented: Hi All, I applied for reliance connection on 11th July 2007, I got the connection setup in 4 working days and the connection was activated on 17th July, The reason I got the connection early was I kept calling them like 5 time a day and it worked for me, I was having the connection for almost two months without any issues at all, The speed was great(little better than DSL), But recently I shifted and I had to cancel the connection, Please read below and decide yourself if you want to go for it, Connection time: 1 Week Max if you keep calling the marketing Guy that offered u the connection Speed: I had opted for 150Kbps and I was getting a Constant Download speed of 18KBps(which is Good, Better that Airtel Broadband), Customer Service: Untill I got the connection I had lot of issues, But After that I never called them in 2 months, My Average Usage was 16 Hrs/Day Some Very Important Points to Note: 1) before taking the connection, walk up to your terrace and look around for reliance tower(Short and usually Grey in Color), If you can spot one(proffered to be not more than 300 - 600 mts away) , Go ahead without any issues, In my case the tower was 50 mts away, 2) If you can spot it, But have lot of trees around, Please ignore the connection 3) If there is no Birds eye view of the reliance tower, You can never get the connection working, 4) Do not expect any good technical support from them, Its waste of time, Try to find out from friends for the same(related to configuration of LAN Card etc) The reason I canceled the connection was for the reason that I did not see any towers around, when I went to my terrace(Even in 7th Floor terrace), Final Verdict: Go for it If there is no other option, And only if there is Direct Birds eye view of the Tower, You will have initial hicups, but once it starts working there is no looking back, I am missing internet connection right now and looking for alternatives, I have used Tata Indicom, Airtel, Sify in the past, but none is available in My area as of now, Please do visit www.youtele.com(Formerly I think it was www.iqara.net) and check for area coverage, these Guys are supposed to be Good, More info on their website, Contact me on sandeep.spatil@gmail.com for more info and In case you happen to come up with a Good Internet Service Provider, do let me know
• September 27, 2007, Asheesh commented: Guys, I stay in BTM Layout 2nd Satge. I want a Reliance WiMax connection, but I cant find any contact details, either on google or on Reliance website. Can someone please provide me with some phone/mobile numbers.

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