BSNL 3G: Recent Impressions

It should be a taken now that 3G works best wherever BSNL chooses to have strong 3G network implementation. And right now, the one place that has excellent 3G coverage is the area around Treasure island. Even within TI, you get "over" 2 MBPS speed. You can watch high quality youtube videos without any buffering. How awesome is that?

BSNL 3G Revised Rating- ****

BSNL 3G Review

BSNL 3G is the first ever truly high speed internet service specifically targeted at the mobile phone segment to be launched in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Other high speed wireless internet services have been launched earlier but their usage has had been limited in computer segment. A bit of backhand information on 3G- the term 3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications service is used to express a major step up by the mobile operator companies on the data transfer rates provided by the previous generation, that's 2G or 2.5G (EDGE/GPRS), whatever you may like to call it. However the speed advertised should meet the speed standards provided by IMT-2000. 2G services could reach a maximum speed of 256 kbps (32 kB/s)! 3G services maximum theoretical download speed limit is 3.6 Mbps (450 kB/s). Note the difference between kb (kilobit) and kB (kilobyte). 1 kilobyte= 8 kilobits!

For its activation, existing BSNL customers could activate the service by messaging to a given number. A timeline of 24-48 hours was given for activation. However the BSNL running phones at my home could only work on 3G 5 days after activation. I purchased at 3G SIM on 17th August (note that 3G doesn't require any special SIM) and I had to wait until 2 days to actually get a taste of what 3G feels like! The early impression on the service was far from good. I couldn't get the bars to be steady at all on my iPhone 4 and the network kept switching from 3G to EDGE (2G) but then I accounted the fact that I was indoors and I live in a heavily congested area with a spare of an open area. The speed tests and all should've worked even with the inconsistency in the bars but to no avail. The real issue turned out to be the fact that I was having two home WiFi networks running simultaneously and that's what caused the interference. After switching them off, 3G seemed to work better now but not by much extents. But when it worked, it gave a flabbergasting 1.6 Mbps average download speed and even better 2.0 Mbps upload speed on the Speed Test application.

Speed Test on iPad 3G

Speed Test on iPhone 4

The real world usage in websites was the same story. It was almost as good as my 2.0 Mbps BSNL broadband connection in loading web pages. But there were serious network reliability issues lingering at that moment- bars kept falling and rising, network kept switching to EDGE making 3G unusable. But considering the fact that BSNL 3G is still at its infancy and testing was all indoors, I called it passable. Of course, one shouldn't expect the speeds to stay the same in different areas of the city as various factors come into picture like distance from the tower, no. of people using the service, etc. While I would've liked to give a recommendation on the only fact that it's the first and only high speed mobile internet service available as of now, I cannot,  based on the indoor testing, it's better if the service is given time to fully mature. But for enthusiasts who don't mind jumping on the 3G bandwagon at an early stage, it comes most recommended for it's great speeds! 

BSNL 3G Indoors Rating- *

Outdoors Rating- ***