Review Excitel Broadband - Comprehensive Review - 5Mbps - SDSL - Unlimited - no FUP

[StickySlime]

Hi.

I'm here to put forward an honest and comprehensive review of Excitel's Broadband internet services provided in Delhi, India.

Official Website: Excitel | Home
Pamphlet Screen-Shot:

Stamped contact number on the pamphlet I received:

Back-Story

Previously, I was using an MTNL internet connection, but considering the painful 4 years I had lived with it, I thought it was time to move on. Besides, I found Excitel's pamphlet/advertisement and I decided it was definitely worth a try. Let's find out.

Switching Period

It took me 3 trips to get my MTNL connection disconnected and finally, I gave a call on the number stamped onto the advertisement, as opposed to the Excitel customer care number, since I thought, that the stamped number would be belonging to the local incharge pertaining to Excitel, and that it would speed things up a bit (since I had already disconnected the MTNL connection).

I was surprised to find out that the connection would be setup before 6 PM, the same day (and it was a Saturday). I also found out that they attend new connection requests even on Sundays.

Anyway, so they kept their promise and two people showed up to get the connection setup. They had a brand new box of good quality Cat 5e cable, which they used to connect the DP (Distribution Point?) directly to my household with 0 joints/junctions. It is to be noted, however, that their backbone is entirely FIBER cable powered. They leave their FIBER cable into your locality and a Cat 5e cable connects the DP to your household.

I was more than satisfied with the quality of the fitting and cabling procedures.

Payment

They only offer prepaid payments for now, payment via online methods is NOT possible at the moment. However, you don't need to go anywhere to pay the monthly charges. Within the first week of every month, someone from your local cable operator/local distribution partner will come over and collect the charges from your doorstep.

The information regarding plans and tariff can be checked via their official website, a link to which has been provided above.

There is a ONE TIME charge of Rs. 500/- for installation and setup. This charge isn't refundable, of course.

Present Day

I had my internet up and running before 6 PM, exactly as they had promised. It was now time to test my new internet connection and I had a lot of hopes and expectations from it.

Goes without saying that the first thing I did was a speed test.

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Plan Name: "ReelTime 649"
Download Speed: 5 Mbps (640 KB/s real-time speed)
Upload Speed: 5 Mbps (640 KB/s real-time speed)
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Download Speed (Youtube / Torrents): 20 Mbps (2.5 MB/s or 2560 KB/s real-time speed)
Upload Speed (Youtube / Torrents): 20 Mbps (2.5 MB/s or 2560 KB/s real-time speed)
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PROS

-- SDSL connection, NOT ADSL. Other ISPs offer things like 10 Mbps download speed and 512 Kbps upload speed. With Excitel, if you get a 5 Mbps connection, download speed = upload speed = 5 Mbps.

-- EXCELLENT peering with Youtube. I seriously mean it. Like seriously. I have deleted the word "buffering" from my dictionary after choosing Excitel.

Proof

Sendvid - Instant video upload

This is a video I recorded of myself watching a 4K video on Youtube. Just watch it to believe it. Nothing else to say.

-- 20 Mbps (2.5 MB/s or 2560 KB/s real-time speed) while using Youtube / Torbox.net. This is valid even if you're on the 5 Mbps plan (same as me).

-- Excellent peering with EU / US servers. If you're into gaming and you play on gaming servers located in Europe / North America, you'll get a lower ping using Excitel. For a comparison ... I used to get 200 - 250 ping using MTNL on some European servers. Now I get 130ms - 150ms.

-- Almost ZERO jitter. This connection is super stable and if you test the jitter to different servers, you will note that the ping value almost never fluctuates and stays a sweet low and stable. This is extremely important for gamers.

-- If you upload videos to YouTube, often, this is the connection you should get. Video uploads to YouTube are done at 2.5 MB/s (real time speed) on my connection.

CONS

-- None witnessed so far.

 

[IndianMascot]

Thanks for the complete review. But there is nothing in this world which doesn't have cons. You just have to wait for it to arrive at you.

 

[StickySlime]

I've been using Excitel for about a week or so, now. Zero downtime so far, however, the connection DID go down at around 11:35 PM (09th February, 2016), but it was back again after 5 minutes on its own.

Their customer care number is not accessible during the wee hours. This means, that if your internet goes down at night, hypothetically speaking, then you can't set it right by any of your actions; you'd need to wait until morning, or until it fixes itself on its own (which it did in my case), but still, this is something worth knowing. However I didn't have any downtime yet, apart from those 5 minutes mentioned earlier.

Speed while downloading a torrent: Sendvid - Instant video upload
Speed while downloading a PRIVATE tracker torrent: http://i.imgur.com/EWVpZ5O.png

As you can make out by the screenshot I posted above, augmented speeds aren't valid for private trackers. That augmented speed is only available for YouTube / TorBox.

It is important to note, however, that the augmented speeds are also available for other torrents (from public trackers) on the internet, which are cached by TorBox . For example, approximately, 6/10 popular torrents of TPB can be downloaded via the augmented speed (20 Mbps in my case).

Just so you have an idea, I have prepared this screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/4pRe8Zl.png
All torrents with a "green play button" or a "green happy face" are speed-augmented torrents (20 Mbps), only the "red sad face" torrents will download with your regular broadband tariff speed (5 Mbps in my case).

I have never gone below my rated speed (630-640 KB/s = 5 Mbps) since I've availed their services. However, I have noticed that during the night, you can go ABOVE and beyond your rated speed (I get 1 MB/s at night instead of 630-640 KB/s).

Updating a steam game at night (getting 1 MB/s instead of 630-640 KB/s): https://i.gyazo.com/f0acdb4d9c1af3f672bacd42c9e0a862.png

Also, if this will help someone in the future, I'll drop in some ways to contact Excitel customer support:
https://i.gyazo.com/be0821eaab30bcbaa9caf2c8aa3fc2db.png

Dropping some screenshots here:

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EDIT:
Another update. On 13th February, 2016, since morning, my connection speed somehow got limited to 2 Mbps instead of the usual 5 Mbps.
I called my cable operator, but he directed me to Excitel's customer care number. That's probably because speed related issues can be fixed by the ISP, not the cable operator.

http://i.imgur.com/oORMgir.png
http://i.imgur.com/352ziv2.png

Anyway, so I called Excitel and was connected to a customer support representative in about 2 minutes. I explained the entire issue and initially, they fiddled with the usual basic stuff such as pinging some IP address, trying to disable windows / Kaspersky's firewall etc. Then they connected to my computer via TeamViewer (remote access) and tried doing the usual basic stuff.

They claimed that the speed I was getting (2 Mbps) was in-line with the speed I should have been getting on my 5 Mbps connection, since the speed is not 5 Mbps throughout the day. I explained them how there was no fluctuation at all and that the speeds have been fixed at 2.06 Mbps since several hours and that it never goes past that value.

In between all this, they asked me to disconnect the call, but keep the remote access as is. I disconnected the call and they kept changing stuff here and there, pinging google's DNS and what not.

While they were still doing stuff on the computer, changing some network settings resulted in my computer to restart, ending the remote access and the call was already disconnected at that point of time, but they were considerate enough to call back again (of their own accord), which is something worth noting.

Most of the stuff they were fiddling with, on my computer, had nothing to do with the actual problem (firewall on/off, uninstalling IDM etc), but I let them do their thing just so that they're mentally satisfied that those aren't the issues. After about 30 minutes of fiddling, they finally did something at their end and the issue was fixed instantly. I tested and confirmed this using a speed test (speedtest.net).

This is the screenshot taken at that exact moment when it was fixed: http://i.imgur.com/mrzk4p7.png
The highlighted text in that screenshot is from me, the others are from their customer support.

Overall, I'd say the experience was good enough. They could take lesser time, but they might be obliged to go through their usual protocol when it comes to diagnosing internet connections.

Issued is fixed now

 

[IndianMascot]

It seems are you spending huge time and effort to analyze this broadband connection than actually enjoying the Internet.

You should make all this in a PowerPoint and email to their management. They will feel very happy and may offer you something good.

 

[StickySlime]

It seems are you spending huge time and effort to analyze this broadband connection than actually enjoying the Internet.

You should make all this in a PowerPoint and email to their management. They will feel very happy and may offer you something good.

Thing is, I've been enjoying every moment of this internet connection. Just half the month is over yet and I've already transferred more than triple the amount of previous months in terms of data usage. Furthermore, I got to know about this company via a similar review that someone else had posted and I clearly remember, that there was no other detailed review about the company, apart from that single one, back when I was searching for a new ISP to change to.

That made me realize the importance of such reviews, wherein, if everybody starts minding their own business as you seem to be believe the way it should be, then no new customer will ever be able to have an insight into what the services are like with a particular ISP. Its due to people like us "who spend too much time in analysis", that other people are able to know the real truth about a new ISP. If you search about this company, you'll find 3 or 4 negative google reviews left by possible rival ISP's agents, which don't even care to explain in detail their experiences.

The difference between such proof-less negative reviews and a detailed review which posts proofs in support of the mentioned claims, can be clearly recognized. In my opinion, "he said, she said" kind of reviews are totally bullshit and cannot (and shouldn't) be trusted.

 

[IndianMascot]

I am sure this review will help find a good and economical broadband in your area.