India Is Ready For Vonage VoIP Services

Which Broadband Provider for VoIP?

June 21, 2005

By Vipul Shah

Q: We have been out of Mumbai since sometime... and hence do not have info about trends and service providers etc...

We are looking for broadband service provider in chembur
area. We only need to use the net for web-surfing + voice chat + email. Please give me as much or as little info that you might have.

A: Give a shot to MTNL Tri Band ADSL services. In most part of Mumbai they have enabled it and if you fill up form tomorrow it would start service at your home within 2-3 days Someone from MTNL will come with ADSL modem which will plug into your PC's Ethernet port. You can expect 256kbps speed, which is good enough for most applications including VoIP. MTNL would also offer you ADSL modem which will plug into USB port but don’t take this option as unlike Ethernet devices, USB devices are heavily driver dependent and next time you have to change/upgrade operating system of your PC if they don’t have driver for your device your PC won’t be able to use it.

Unlike Sify, Hathway, Seven Star etc you don't have to worry about cable fault or switches going bad between your home and local operator. This happens to chembur Sify connections often, sometimes 2-3 times a week. And every time you register a complaint, even if fault exists 500 meter away from your home, they want to see "green light blinking" on back of your PC on Ethernet card so either you have to stay home for their technician or have someone stay home to do that. No amount of convincing sify that connectivity from your PC is fine will work. Eventually they replace/restart some switch some distance away and service starts.

In MTNL Tri Band's case, their tech support is very simple, they will ask you "do you get dial tone when you pickup phone?" if yes then they know there is no physical cable problem, but some server issue at their end and is resolved. Bad part of MTNL is that when server goes down on Saturday, till Monday it is down as on weekends they don't work. Good part is in last 4-5 years MTNL's cabling has been very good and even in monsoon rarely your phone goes dead.

MTNL Tri-Band is pure unfiltered Ethernet internet. So you can plug in any devices other then PC like VoIP boxes like Vonage to make and receive VoIP calls. Many small business owners in Mumbai are already using Vonage service with MTNL tri-band to serve their American clients better. Very soon Vonage is introducing Wi-Fi mobile phone which will fit in your shirt pocket and anytime you are in range of Wi-Fi router you will beable to make and receive calls. This is possible only with MTNL Tri-band and not with Sify or other providers.

MTNL Tri-Band costs Rs.399 (plus Rs.80 for modem rental) plus service tax every month you get 400MB of data transfer which should be sufficient for surfing. Additional MB is Rs.1.2 each.

Down payment on Sify and would be Rs.3000 which goes in local operator's pocket. For MTNL Tri-Band it is Rs.1300 which brings you ADSL modem and someone comes to setup connection at your end. There is no wiring to be done till your home if you already have MTNLs phone line at home.
MTNL Tri-Band can be used with one PC or one device directly plugged into their ADSL router or you can connect ADSL router to Ethernet / Wi-Fi switch and share it with multiple PC. You can’t do same with Sify Broadband connection. You need to take separate Sify account for every PC you may have.