Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Hughes Satellite Internet!

Well, as you many know from my earlier posts, Reliance is becoming unbearable with its slow speed. Now, unfortunately, there is only BSNL broadband in my area. However, BSNL broadband takes about 2 months to install. So far, I have visited the BSNL office 12 times but still they make excuses. Also, the BSNL service is unreliable.

For this reason, I recently contacted Hughes for VSAT Satellite Internet. I rang there switchboard and they gave me a phone number of a person who could provide more information to me. I rang this person about 7 times but no one picked up the phone. After informing the switchboard numerous times about this problem, they would simply say that they could not do anything and finally they hung up on me!!! Can you believe it? Here I am prepared to give these guys money to install the Internet and yet they are so unprofessional that they do not even have a proper customer care line!!

About 1 month later, I get a surprise call from Hughes asking me about my inquiry. Needless to say, I gave them a good bashing on the phone about their poor service. Now, as it turns out, Hughes are one of the largest providers of VSAT Internet. Of course, I was quite shocked!

VSAT Internet involves the installation of a satellite dish about 1.5 meter in diameter on the your rooftop. The dish directly communicates with the satellite in space and sends a signal back to your rooftop. Obviously, with VSAT, you can be sitting on top of Mount Everest and still access the Internet with high speed!

The cost of the rooftop satellite including delivery and installation is about Rs.60,000 which is a one time cost. The satellite comes with a 1 year warranty. Since, the price is quite high, I asked the salesman if I could rent the satellite. However, he declined saying that the satellite must be purchased.

Hughes have a number of Internet plans ranging from 256Kpbs to 768 Kbps speed. Now, the weird thing about these plans is that they include a download limit per day! Generally, Internet plans offer you a monthly download limit but Hughes only offers a specified download limit per day. This ranges from 50mb to 200mb per day. If you exceed the download, they would limit your speed. Of course, this is quite inconvenient since programs these days are quite large and downloading programs over 200mb would become impossible! The cost of these plans range from Rs.4000/month to about Rs.25,000/month depending on your speed and download per day.

Anyway, I am considering their offer and he said that there is room for negotiation on the price. Still, I feel quite exploited that I would have to pay Rs.4000/month for an Internet connection with moderate speed in this day and age not to mention the Rs. 60,000 for the satellite! But what can I do?

8 comments:

Hrishikesh Lele said...

hi,

could you please email me contact details for Hughes ?

thanks
hrishi

Diablo Reigns said...

Which part of country do you live in ? 60K for a satellite dish and 4000 for a 256 kbps internet connection. that is daylight robbery. I am amazed.

Alekh said...

@lesley,
Try www.hughesindia.com and see if you have any luck. Otherwise, I will give you the phone number of the sales person.

@diablo
I live in Uttaranchal. But what can I do? Only BSNL is here and they are demanding a bribe. Even with the bribe given, they still make excuses.

Alekh said...

In fact, try http://www.hughes.in/. Contact their switchboard at
0124 - 307 2500

Anonymous said...

ur such a unlucky man having to pay this much for a internet connection.... this is simply not sensible! pls...dont take the satellite connection with this much downlimits of data! well try bsnl itself...complain to higher authorities....about lack of speed........make their lives miserable .....! i think u know bsnl home 3300 connection of 2mbps ,with 20gb download and also 2am - 8am unlimited download ! just think of all the money u have 2 shell out for that dish...and how less data transfer u would get!

Alekh said...

Hi Kapil,

Yeah, I wish I was living in Delhi and had Airtel Broadband! But, what can i do? BSNL is really very bad here in Dehradun. For example, in the last 2 days, BSNL broadband has been down. I called them numerous times but they said that they could nothing about it as it was the weekend and everyone was on holidays!

Unknown said...

Dear alekh
it is very unfortunate for us that in this era we in up and uttaranchal facing a grim problem regarding net connectivity. for the huges connection i would say is very expensive and is at the same time too slow for the price they offer.
stick to ur application for the bsnl broad band.it will be available sooner or later. i had also applied for the same nine months ago and am hoping to get the connection next year.
Ali

SABARI said...

he said problem is prevailing everywhere, irrespective of state,region or place;India has become highly corrupt and in future you have to bribe them for everything.what to do? it is our fate.
After all we are electing corrupt politicians and how can we expect morality from their employees?