[Samurai]

Just checking to see experiences with Reliance leased line service.

I am evaluating 1Mbps (1:1) leased line from Reliance. Since I have had bad experience with their ADSL billing horrors, I want to be cautious. Although they are offering 99.5% SLA, there is no mention of that in the exit clause. If the promised SLA is not delivered by Reliance, I can't cancel the service, which is rather strange.

Is there anybody here who has used Reliance leased line service, how is your user experience, downtimes, etc.

[SUV]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Just checking to see experiences with Reliance leased line service.

I am evaluating 1Mbps (1:1) leased line from Reliance. Since I have had bad experience with their ADSL billing horrors, I want to be cautious. Although they are offering 99.5% SLA, there is no mention of that in the exit clause. If the promised SLA is not delivered by Reliance, I can't cancel the service, which is rather strange.

Is there anybody here who has used Reliance leased line service, how is your user experience, downtimes, etc.

If you can get Airtel / Tata Teleservices go with them, Reliance does not have any kind of support process in place. Though their Link's are stable, its a headache when they go down. When you call their Support Desk the Standard Reply would be "Sir, Our system's are down, kindly call after some time", we are not able to log your complaint !!!

And when you escalate the reply would be "Sir, you have not logged a complaint", hence nobody is working on your problem...

[Samurai]

Damn! This is on a leased line Internet service costing few lakhs a year?

How often do they go down and for how long?

The Airtel service is 50% more expensive for similar deal, so that's out. The Tata guys don't have a service here.

[sukiwa]

Leased line experience has to be better than broadband experience.
Just ensure that you get last mile connectivity to your office on fibre instead of copper wires in order to get some protection against single fibre cut. Reliance calls it 'one cut not out' scenario. Fibre gets laid in a ring fashion & can still continue to offer connectivity in case of a single fibre cut due to work on public roads.

[SUV]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Damn! This is on a leased line Internet service costing few lakhs a year?

How often do they go down and for how long?

The Airtel service is 50% more expensive for similar deal, so that's out. The Tata guys don't have a service here.

What kinda bandwidth are you looking at if i may ask... I can PM you what am paying currently if you like.

btw did you check with Railtel ?

Re: Reliance downtime - From my personal experience for remote area's i have seen downtime's upto 24 hours. Metros it ranges anywhere from 1 hour - 4 hours. Its not the downtime which is a bother, but getting the approx uptime is a major problem. I mean if you know your link is going to be up @ xx:xx time then you are in peace. But with reliance they have a standard answer "Sir our NOC team is working on it, we wouldnt be able to give you a time frame" this is in-spite of giving them over an hour after the complaint... In effect their NOC team themselves dont know / dont want to work and keep passing the buck.

[tsk1979]

Try exploring Business ADSL lines. Take 3-4 lines from different guys(Airtel/BSNL). In your location you may be constrained due to lack of competition.
As for Leased line without exit clause based on downtime, don't do any deal.
check with VSNL/Tata. But since their dada is over the FLAG cable(jointly owned by reliance), in case of problems both VSNL and TATA will face the heat.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by sukiwa

Just ensure that you get last mile connectivity to your office on fibre instead of copper wires in order to get some protection against single fibre cut.

The last mile is RF (Wifi), their POP is on a building that has line of sight from my building.

Originally Posted by SUV

What kinda bandwidth are you looking at if i may ask... I can PM you what am paying currently if you like.

1 Mbps (1:1) with a SLA of 99.5%.

Originally Posted by SUV

btw did you check with Railtel ?

Never heard of them, that means they are not around here.

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Try exploring Business ADSL lines. Take 3-4 lines from different guys(Airtel/BSNL). In your location you may be constrained due to lack of competition.

I already have Business ADSL line from Airtel. They don't give any SLA, and no support in non-business hours which is a problem for us. Let's not even talk about BSNL, they don't know anything about Internet down here.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

check with VSNL/Tata. But since their dada is over the FLAG cable(jointly owned by reliance), in case of problems both VSNL and TATA will face the heat.

TATA has its own cable to Singapore (TIC). Its operational since 2005.

And it owns Tyco (Just like Reliance owns FLAG).

Most operators (Airtel / TATA / Reliance) have their own cables now a days.

[sukiwa]

If last mile is on RF, then it will be free from any man-made mishaps on road, just be cautious on windy/rainy days. RF can give trouble free service if antennas don't change their position. You will have bear with more latency (10 ms or more) on international path compared to fibre last mile.

This leaves only connectivity on international path to be talked/worried about (touched by tanveer earlier).

Reliance owns FLAG & it was their only international path(travels via middle east to Europe) till a month back or so. Hence, they had a major problem in Jan/feb '08 due to undersea cable cut near Egypt on 30th Jan '08. Other ISPs (TATA, Bharti) had capacities on other cables like SEAMEWE4, i2i & were able to divert traffic. Reliance customers suffered during that time as only FLAG was accessible to Reliance & it took time for Reliance to seek capacities on other cables. Reliance claim that it has alternate path available now & can sustain such failures in future.

TATA has ample capacity on multiple cables & has multiple paths to reach Europe & US.

Bharti was dependant on Singtel/i2i cable for long, they too claim to have their own international submarine cable now.

Disclaimer: Do not work for any ISP/Reliance, just shared info that I had.

[ph03n!x]

My office has a Reliance link, and as per the data available, we have had three outages in July. The max turnaround time was about an hour (for one of the outages). Tracking back, June had one outage, May - two and April had three. Max turnaround time was always about one hour, if not less.

Hope this helps

[given2fly]

Even though Reliance may own FLAG, it isn't wise to go for a company which doesn't offer any support. If there isn't any construction activity going on around your place, I don't see a reason why copper connectivity should be a problem. Wireless connections go bust at the smallest of the changes in surrounding electrical noises and aren't a reliable option with a lot of cell towers & heavily populated areas. Check out BSNL business plans. They look good to me, but again the area specific reliability index will play a key role in choosing an ISP. Happy hunting.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by sukiwa

If last mile is on RF, then it will be free from any man-made mishaps on road, just be cautious on windy/rainy days. RF can give trouble free service if antennas don't change their position.

I am already using RF as my last mile for the ADSL connection since a year. In fact, the current RF last mile is DIY. See this: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/gadget...locations.html

Originally Posted by ph03n!x

My office has a Reliance link, and as per the data available, we have had three outages in July. The max turnaround time was about an hour (for one of the outages). Tracking back, June had one outage, May - two and April had three. Max turnaround time was always about one hour, if not less.

About 3 hours downtime a month is well within 99.5% uptime. So that should be ok.

Originally Posted by given2fly

If there isn't any construction activity going on around your place, I don't see a reason why copper connectivity should be a problem.

That's because you haven't seen my place. Airtel has refused to lay copper even after a year of begging. They are only offering RF last mile and at 50% higher charge than Reliance.

Originally Posted by given2fly

Wireless connections go bust at the smallest of the changes in surrounding electrical noises and aren't a reliable option with a lot of cell towers & heavily populated areas.

I have been using DIY RF last mile since a year, it is rock solid even during heavy rains.

Originally Posted by given2fly

Check out BSNL business plans. They look good to me, but again the area specific reliability index will play a key role in choosing an ISP. Happy hunting.

Last year when we enquired about business plans in BSNL, they said and I quote "What is a business plan?".

There are only two leased line providers here, Airtel and Reliance. The BSNL people here can't be trusted with anything hi-tech, they take 15 days to fix a busted phone line.

[tsk1979]

Samurai, why not Airtel business account.
I presume you take connection till a point 1km away from office, and fix your DIY RF
In that case take 4 ADSL business plans. Even if one line goes down, you have fall back options.
Moreover I think their turnaround time is 3-4 hours max on business lines.

Till some competition comes, stick to this.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Samurai, why not Airtel business account.
I presume you take connection till a point 1km away from office, and fix your DIY RF

That's what we are doing right now. Also, the other place won't have the robust power backup we have.

Originally Posted by tsk1979

In that case take 4 ADSL business plans. Even if one line goes down, you have fall back options.
Moreover I think their turnaround time is 3-4 hours max on business lines.

All are from the same source, that means single point of failure. Any failure after 6PM or on Sundays, we are stuck for a very long time until the next working day. If it is major failure, they will get to it faster, but if it is a wire problem, they will take their time.

Last week we had a wire problem that took 5 days to resolve, we had to cancel many business activities due to that. Finally I had to send 5 of my engineers to sit at Airtel office before they hurried to fix the problem.

[tsk1979]

Then you are stuck. If reliance is not giving any commitment, its as good/bad as the situation you are currently in.