Life @ 1Mbps

After more than 6 years of struggling on a broadFUCKband connection, I’m glad to welcome a proper broadband connection at my place with no strings attached. (Yes, no download limits)

My journey begins somewhere back in the 90s when I was still in school. My first exposure to the world wide web was by my good childhood friend Navdeep. He was the one who introduced me to the concept of the Internet (back then, it was a relatively new phenomenon). Subsequently, I had a dosage of the web at nearby cyber cafes.

Later, in 1999, my dad installed RoltaNet’s dial-up connection at my place and I clearly remember that evening when I actually got hooked onto the internet – the first website being CartoonNetwork.com.

Me and my brother literally raped the connection which resulted in a bill of more than 15k for the month. Post which, the phone line was disconnected for 3 months… Yes, daddy was pissed off.

Later in 2003 (after my HSC exams), was the time when Hathaway launched their OL24 connection in my area. OL24 implied Online 24 hours (which was hardly the case). And their service sucked. The most ridiculous part was even after disconnecting from their service I used to get the monthly bill. And upon asking them why, one of the employees casually replied "Invalid bill aata hai to fek do nah!". I almost laughed on that jackass’ face. If they are so disorganized in their billing department, you can imagine how their customer care unit is, and how worse their connectivity could be.

Anyway, in 2005 I moved to Iqara Broadband which was later renamed to You Telecom. They were good initially, but then things began to get worse. Every weekend when I’m excited to be doing stuff online, the connection’s gone. And registering complains always took 24 hours for some amount of action to be taken. I believe that instead of smoothening the process, call centers actually delay and fuck up the customer service. My struggle on You Telecom finally ended last Thursday when I had the new Reliance Wimax connection set up. I’m getting a 1Mbps dedicated line with UNLIMITED download. And it costs me only Rs. 2,500 (including taxes).

It feels like heaven. Trust me!