Well I just don’t want to write a review on a network provider in a blog dedicated for .net programming, but I think its a MUST to write, so that my readers, and friends are aware of the problem with Airtel HSDPA Data Connection.
Well here are the specs and packages for their data connection Airtel provided:
Package Details:
Limited: 1 GB for Rs.300 + Tax
3 GB for Rs.600 + TaxUnlimited: for Rs.1499 + Tax
Tax rates:
VAT (Value Added Tax) = 16.67%
MSL (Mobile Subscriber Levy) = 11.11%
ECL (Environmental Subscriber Levy) = 2%
Total: 29.78%Do they offer promised speed?
This a question that there is no direct answer, for the unlimited package they said they offer 3.2mbps (409.6KB/s) As far as I know, people experience around 100 – 250Kb/s!
Is there any limits like Fair User Policy?
No, Its 100% unlimited
I Purchased the Unlimited Package, and the much hyped First month the connectivity was ok, connecting around 320 KB/s , but from february 2009, the culprit shows its real face. the connection is as low as 13 KB/s (yeah i understand as slow as the dialup connections in old days). i called their customer care service and the only reply i got from them is this :
“I’m very sorry for the inconvenience caused sir, but we are doing some upgrade process these days, and it will be fixed very soon”
Poor me, believed them, and until this moment I’m writing this post, the connection wasn’t fixed. i have called them with patience several times, and all the times I’ve got various responses from the customer care agents who had very less knowledge on the technology, which is irrelevant to the issue, and one of them were not at all caring what the customers problem was. most of the time the agents said their superior will call me back on the next morning, and non of the called me, and whatever the complaint numbers they give me is closed by them without resolution each time, whenever i call and ask about the complaint number. the above quoted text is the answer. one of them mentioned that the entire Internet is only 1MB/s and their connectivity is 3.2 MB/s . and the Internet is slow because its slower than their connectivity!?? . i hope non of you techies and geeks will agree with this (yeah can see some of you laugh ROFL) .
One Airtel agent mentioned that their ISP’s are full and needs time to upgrade, yeah its understandable, but is that a problem for a consumer who still pays the full amount for the service? we can bare with this for a week or two, but more than a month, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? . they should have planned well and done these to handle the amount of users, now their are doing their maintenance with the cost of many users money, and time.
Another thing i found with them is that a single connection through Internet download Manager was connecting around 13-20 KB/s , even to download a 10 MB file i had to wait more than 20 minutes, and also if i tried a concurrent download of 10 files at the same time, and each file was downloading in that speed, consuming a total bandwidth of 1MB or more. and non of the agents were able to explain me why is this happening.
And frustrated me, sent an email about this problem to 555@airtel.lk which is their customer care email, and is said that it will be responding within few days, responded after 14 days i sent the email, with the following reply. see how responsible Airtel is about their customer problems.
Yeah they sent an email on 23rd of April saying that the issue will be resolved on 17th of April 2009, as per to my knowledge 17th comes before 23rd not after right?, correct me if I’m wrong guys ROFL. and when i just called them and asked about this, guess what again the reply was the above quoted text, and a silence (poor agents I’m sure its not their faults, but they are the person we can communicate to Airtel right), and again the issue was never solved!?.
I think if Airtel is willing to maintain the hype it made when it launched in Sri Lanka, and the Reputation of Airtel Organization, it needs to consider about waiving off the monthly charge they charged for the month cycles March, and April from their data package customers, Isn’t it unfair to charge the customer for their mistakes, and for a service which didn’t serve its promise???
Friends in Sri Lanka, think twice before you select this Data connection, it might look like wonder when you start using it initially, but its NOT!!!!. its just an ILLUSION. I’m just posting this because i don’t want any of you guys to waste your valuable time, and money with a bad service which i experienced.
I think i would rather upgrade my DSL line with the SLT, rather than wasting my time with Airtel Anymore. even though DSL was slower than 3.2 MB/s, it never failed its promised bandwidth!!.
And my Final verdict:
Airtel HSDPA Data Connection = a Fake Promise
P.S : oh yeahh i just found that they’ve (Airtel) removed the data connection details from their website. 
Popularity: 15% [?]
April 30th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Good post bro,
I think they are not gonna last in Sri Lanka for a long time. i already moved away from them.
cheers,
April 30th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
I had a airtel connection, in Feb… it was disconnecting every 2 hours and etc and so much other issues, I demanded them to disconnect it.. and still they wanted to keep it active so stupid, they suck real time.. please take your connection and go away
April 30th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Yes, the Airtel connection sux to the max. Bye bye Airtel. I am switching back to SLT ADSL.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Thank God i selected dialog for mi data package was thinking of airtel but wasn’t sure.. guys i kw dialog is expensive but its the right choice.. since mobitel doesnt have unlimited plan ? i think dialog is on top but if mobitel comes with unlimited plan it would be the fastest..
April 30th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Hey Miko,
Yeah Man, i disconnected my dialog connection too, thinking Airtel will be good. anyway im gonna get Dialog back.
May 1st, 2009 at 2:29 am
I know ow frustrating it can be. But In SL the liability of after sales services as well as the customer services are only mere promises… macho…, haven’t you heard of a saying “promises are made to be broken..!”
May 1st, 2009 at 8:58 am
I also bought Airtel connection, and i also experience the same problems that u guys face. to be more specific, i experience very slow connection during the evenings like, from 9 pm to 11pm. But during the day time, specialy in the mornings, i get a very good connection. right now, while im making this comment, i got a maximum download speed of 2.2Mbps. but during the peak time, its around 150~200 Kbps which sucks. I hope they will upgrade it soon. Anyway, since they give a 3G modem which is NOT LOCKED! i have the choice to go to a different service provider.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Hey Sup,
Yeah may be it happens, but do you get these speed constantly.. for me most of the time its less than 20 Kbps. too bad isn’t it.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:17 am
You are right Aneef, it is not constant. but if its under 20kbps,its terrible and there should be some problem. I think you should realy do something for that. Anyway, airtel should expand their bandwidth here in sl, coz in india they advertise a maximum speed of 16Mbps.
If mobitel gave their data packages for a reasonable price, that would be the best right now.
May 3rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Thank you Mr.Aneef for your post. I hope it will prevent many others getting in to trouble. I am also having exactly the same experiences in Airtel performance and their useless customer care as well. I gave up my previous dialog HSDPA connection because of it’s FUP and poor indoor coverage. But now I can realize dialog is much better than this. I have been cheated!Instead of improvement it is further deteriorating. I am thinking of changing in to mobitel 7GB plan even though it is not unlimited!
May 11th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I also going through the same crisis with the CrapTel, so seems for all they are giving the same dome excuse (They were building towers for almost 3 months in my area now.. what bullsh** ), but for once try running a Torrent on CrapTel connection. you will see that it works great, seems CrapTel people throttling the HTTP and known protocol traffic… (it’s just a guess), I also have good experience with CrapTel customer care.. if you are interested reading
http://www.fanaticzine.com/?p=76
http://www.fanaticzine.com/?p=147
May 13th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Dont go to dialog……pls,pls,pls
Airtel is better than dialog.
Mobitel is 100% speed gauranteed and no unlimited plan
May 14th, 2009 at 7:40 am
thanks and good bye
May 15th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Mobitel is the best in performance even though it is not unlimited! Dialog is far better than Airtel in except in indoor signal level. With dialog I had speeds comparable to mobitel but airtel is very much similar to an 128K ISDN connection and that also unstable. Although it doesn’t have FUP, what can you do with that kind of useless speed? So if you are going for quality go for mobitel and if you want unlimited usage dialog is a better option (but we have to pay Rs 100 per day after 5GB to maintain a better speed). Airtel customer care is terrible! Airtel is the best example for the old statement ‘Laaba baduwe hilak athe’!
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:34 pm
i don’t know about in sri lanka.i am a air tel internet user in india ,in here they are giving 12kb/s for 675 indian rupees unlimitedly
June 5th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Yo dudes dialog unlimited package is d best. At d moment im also using dialog and hav no probs at all. mobitel is damn expensive and no unlimited package so it sucks otherwise its d best.
June 14th, 2009 at 1:41 am
NEVER buy airtel 300 and 600 limited data packages..for an additional 1mb they charge 5.12 rupees..that means a half a cent per kb..so an additional 1gb usage will cost you more than rs5000…anyway when i looked at the telecommunication regulatory commission website it said the approved charges for airtel 300 and 600 data packages are 0.05 cents per an additional kb. http://www.trc.gov.lk/images/pdf/Airtel_tarrif.pdf .i went to the airtel store and asked about it they said that it should be a “printing mistake” in trc website and CS didnt allow me to talk to their superiors..when i called CS hotline they told me that i may have made a mistake bcoz they have been operating packages for 4 months without a problem. But this is serious since they are charging 10 times more than accepted trc rates for pathetic speeds….I tried to compare airtel with other operators…mobitel charges 5 rs. per additional 10MB …dialog – Rs1 for 1 Mb…so Airtel charges 10 times more than mobitel and 5 times more than dialog…I asked about this also and they replied that they don’t have rentals.they only have monthly commitments..so their charges cant b compared with the other operators…THIS IS WORSE THAN DIALOG.becoz they charge 10TIMES more than what has been approved… But What can we do? Please halp me…
July 1st, 2009 at 10:28 am
HI Aneef ,
I’m from Kurunegala, i was really lookin forward to airtel data packages being available in kurunegala but after i saw what u had to say i am havin second thoughts. i heard that airtel 3g will soon be available in Kuru and i’m plannin to buy the unlimted data package. whats ur thought on that? is it still full of crap or has it been fixed after so many customer complaints? please give me an idea….
July 1st, 2009 at 10:44 am
Hi Udesh,
Heard still their service is bad, actually worse than before. saw a post in some other site, most of the time the connection is less than 10KB. better check in your area before going ahead.
July 8th, 2009 at 2:47 am
Their service is still crap!
They said that they are getting some new equipment to help deal with the “overload” at the end of this month. I’m gonna wait till then and if its not fixed I’m gonna disconnect it and go back to SLT.
The strangest thing is that when I’m downloading torrent I get a total speed of around 60kb/s but I can’t fraking load my goddamn homepage. Makes you wonder what kind of fraked up system they have running. I’d like to meet the dumb ass who designed and implemented their network, so I can introduce my hand to his face.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Airtel voice also sucks. u cant get a call to mobitel numbers. when customer services contacted they are telling it’s mobitels problem. So as customer what should we do. Before Airtel came telco operators were doin somewht ok service to the customers. Airtel destroyed the standards set by telco operators and very poor. they threatened other telco operators but didn’t provide the service ppl intended. if Airtel has thought Sri Lankan customers can be fooled by jst giving a Simple plan like in India, where cost is everything they have to chk with their market research companies. Sri lankans are a learned nation and could not b fooled easily. Mind that Airtel You suck.
(Note I am not a Dialog, Mobitel ,tigo, Hutch, Lankabell, Suntel, SLT employee. a dissapointed Airtel customer)
July 18th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I have got to know from well placed inside sources, is that Airtel is having loads of problems getting interconnect from other operators.. It seems other than Dialog, unless TRC issues directives, the other operators do not willingly give interconnections..
The reason for there data connection speeds to be slow is that, many people are using the connections for illegal or business operations which have caused the slowness.. I have learn t they have brought down equipment to counter these problems and things should be ok from mid august.. On the data tariff rate, I have spoken to a person in TRC and they have admitted there is a mistake.. But till date, they don’t correct it.
July 19th, 2009 at 6:56 am
Hey Aneef,
Thanx for your reply. How do I check my area for Airtel reception? You mean- with an airtel voice sim? There is good reception around my area as far as Airtel voice is concerned.
July 27th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Thank you for posting this.
Everyone should be made aware of the actual situation.
July 27th, 2009 at 9:21 am
I am a Victim of Airtel fake NET.Do not ever buy this product, In My Area the downspeed is only 15KBPS.So I guess it is below than a Dial Up.If you plan to buy an AIRtell broadband , better buy a Dial Up instead.