Railtel - One of the best broadband plans in India!

[akshay1234]

Originally Posted by barcode

I have an Airtel 512kbps... Get download speads of 100kbps easily!

how? that means you have an 800kbps connection?

[Sandeep_K_Ram]

Originally Posted by akshay1234

how? that means you have an 800kbps connection?

something very wrong here.

If he has a 512kbps connection , why is it not possible that he should get at least 100kbps ?

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by akshay1234

how? that means you have an 800kbps connection?

Originally Posted by Sandeep_K_Ram

something very wrong here.

If he has a 512kbps connection , why is it not possible that he should get at least 100kbps ?

Two reasons:

1. There is a difference between kbps (kilobits/sec) and kBps (kiloBytes/sec)
2. The "512" is the minimum guaranteed speed between your computer and the ISP - the ceiling is 1Mbps or 2Mbps etc depending on the connection.

cya
R

ps - also akshay1234, in the internet world 1 byte ends up equating to 10bits, not 8 (due to 2bits for error checking)

[tsk1979]

Nope 512 is the maximum
The plans say (Speeds upto 512Kbps).
We get 100KBps etc., because sometimes Airtel for no apparent reason starts to give 2x speed at night.
Many times even in day you can get double speed for no apparent reason

[chetan]

tsk you are absolutely right , i have a 256kbps unlimited plan sometimes i dont know what goes into it the speed that i get during night times are unbelievable ... so i think 512 kbps users must be getting 100kbps DL speed

btw this rail wire is too good to be true !!

[HappyWheels]

What I get in Airtel is:

256kbps which translate to 20~25kBps

now:

512kbps which translate to 40~50kBps

[navin]

Railtel reminds me of the Southern Pacific Railroad Integrated Network story (young guns call it Sprint).

[Sandeep_K_Ram]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Two reasons:

1. There is a difference between kbps (kilobits/sec) and kBps (kiloBytes/sec)
2. The "512" is the minimum guaranteed speed between your computer and the ISP - the ceiling is 1Mbps or 2Mbps etc depending on the connection.

cya
R

ps - also akshay1234, in the internet world 1 byte ends up equating to 10bits, not 8 (due to 2bits for error checking)

I am aware of the difference between kbps and kBps. Almost all ISPs quote in kbps which is kilo bits per sec.

So if the guy who post that he has got a 512kbps plan says he gets 100kbps speed ... there is absolutely nothing wrong or surprising about it ! IS there ? As per his plan the max speed he can get is 512kbps and he is getting 100kbps which is actually pretty low.

512kbps = 64kBps
100kbps =12.5kBps

Whichever unit you are using , the speed he is getting is quite low compared to the speed he is "supposed" to get as per his plan.

Originally Posted by chetan

tsk you are absolutely right , i have a 256kbps unlimited plan sometimes i dont know what goes into it the speed that i get during night times are unbelievable ... so i think 512 kbps users must be getting 100kbps DL speed

btw this rail wire is too good to be true !!

well 512kbps users are supposed to get at least 300-400kbps !! 100kbps is very low ...

If you are using a Home 500 dataone plan , you are supposed to get upto 2Mbps and if you see the speed using something like a NetMeter you can see it that it will be between 1.3-1.8Mbps most of the time.

Nobody will give you more speed than they advertise though its common that you always get lesser speed than they say.

Originally Posted by HappyWheels

What I get in Airtel is:

256kbps which translate to 20~25kBps

now:

512kbps which translate to 40~50kBps

That is spot on . I think there is some confusion here between kbps and kBps among a few users.

1Byte = 8bits i.e 1B=8b.

So if you get 32 kilo bits per sec its actually only 4 kilo Bytes per sec.

So the max speed you can get on
1. 512kbps is 64kBps
2. 256kbps is 32kBps and so on ...

to get speed in kBps you only divide the kbps by 8.

I know about the error control coding somebody was mentioning - the start and stop bits used in a frame of bits but that is only control info. The speed mentioned is the overall data transfer bitspeed so when they say 1byte it still is 8 bits - the control info is meant for the protocols in place ...so its not that you have to divide the speed by 10 instead of 8.

[tsk1979]

ISP data transfer measures the entire packet, not just data.
My RAW Data transfer is usually 75KBps, or 600kbps.
If I just count the "data" bits I get around 65-68KBps all the time.

This transfer includes upstream and downstream both.
If I setup a tunnel, and try to measure data throughput, I get around 480-500kbps(Data transfer rate).
From normal sites during download, I get an Mb down every 2.5 seconds or so.
So a 3MB-4MB file comes down in a minute.

Right now there is no Bittorrent throttling on Airtel
This railtel thing sounds great if they do not implement any "traffic shaping".

[DerAlte]

Let me add to the confusion: All ISPs (wired, wireless, cable, et al) quote connection rates, not something suitable for calculating effective Byte throughput rates. So if you really want to compute bps to Bps, the denominator has to be 11 (not 8) x (1:n factor) x (buffering to get the consumer to the rate plan throughput). And this on top of (traffic conditions at the intermediate points) and line noise, where only God can help you.

On my BSNL ADSL connection at home, I get a 512/2048 Up/Down connection, but the effective throughput is the equivalent of 256Kbps promised in the rate plan. God bless BSNL, at least they are trying to be honest. I pity the cable consumers, they get the least price-performance unless they are the only house in a new colony.

[ph03n!x]

Here is what I got from them:

Warm Greetings from RailWire!

This is with regards to your recent online enquiry with RailWire (appended below).
We are glad to receive your enquiry.
Chennai will come under our pan-India rollout plans. From the customer support team we, at present don’t have good visibility into the exact dates/timelines. However, you could expect us to reach chennai by end of this year or early next year.



With warm regards,
Team - RailWire Operations

eMail: connect@railwire.in | Tel: 91 80 4060 88 99 | URL: Railwire - Home
SMS: RAILWIRE(space)<Your Location> to 5 67 67 75

RailWire is an initiative of RailTel Corporation of India Ltd., Ministry of Railways, Govt. of India

So end of this year, huh??! And I am pleasantly surprised to even receive a response, that too within 6 hours of me posting in their website!!