‘Gift a broadband’ with BSNL! No charges for first month! No installation charges!

BSNL Bangalore is offering a scheme for celebrating Christmas & New year called ‘Gift a Broadband…’. You can just walk in to any BSNL customer service center & purchase a Greeting Card enclosed with gift voucher to avail a new broadband connection. This greeting card costs you just Rs.100.  Following are the benefits user who applies for new broadband gets using this scheme:

• Free Broadband Starter Plan (Rs.250) for a month
• No rental on modem for a month (Rs.80)
• No installation charges (Rs.250)

So total value is Rs.580 & you are paying only Rs.100. This scheme is valid only till 31st Jan 2010 & user has to apply for broadband within that date.

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BSNL has reduced usage charges for broadband plan Convinence 250. Updated plan details below:

Monthly Charges: Rs.250

Free Usage: 1 GB

Usage beyond free usage: Rs. 0.5/Mb (Discounted from Rs. 0.9 per MB)

As ususal, modem charges & landline charges are extra. You can view the complete plan details about the plan here.

BSNL Bangalore announced discounts on monthly charges for EVDO & NIC cards for existing Broadband users paying more than Rs.499 every month. Monthly charge for EVDO connection for normal customers is Rs.550, but it is just Rs.300 under this offer. Similarly monthly charges for NIC card connection is Rs.250 & discounted price is Rs.150. These discounts are applicable for one year & after that period you will have to pay the normal charges. You need to also keep your existing broadband connection & should be paying atleast Rs.499 to be eligible for this offer. In case if you discontinue your Broadband connection in between, you have to pay the normal charges. So, basically these are addon plans for BSNL Broadband users to enable mobility.

BSNL EVDO connection seem to be pretty good with city wide coverage & providing speeds upto 2.4 Mbps. As per the experienced users you can get 2mbps speed when you are close to the tower & around 1mbps when bit far away from tower. The big plus of EVDO plan from BSNL is, it’s unlimited!

For more details about these discounted plans check these docs from BSNL Bangalore website: EVDO Plan, NIC Card Plan. For more details on EVDO cards, coverage & help queries you can check out my friend GigaCore’s blog & forum bsnlevdoclub.com.

Reliance has updated tariff plans for it’s Wi Max broadband service. It has come up with buisiness plans with static IP. There are some minor changes in Single user plans, installation charges are changed. And in multi user pack ?Static IP? is offered You can get more details about Reliance wimax at http://www.techbangalore.com/reliance-wimax-internet-connection-in-bagalore/

Following is the new tariff:

Single User:

Multi User:

For more queries & getting a connection contact Irfan M Shaikh, 9986018604

BSNL has reduced charges for Home Unlimited Dataone Broadband plans. And in addition to that it also introduced two unlimited plans with 512 kbps speed. Home 900 & Home 900 PLUS now has become Home 750 & Home 750 PLUS. As the name of the plan indicates, charges are reduced from Rs.900 to Rs.750. Here is the new tariff table:

Note:
For Home Plan UL 750 Plus & UL 1350 Plus: Telephone fixed monthly charges per month- Nil, Free Calls- Nil, MCU charges per Pulse @ Rs. 1/- shall be applicable. The calls shall be charged as per pulse rate of BSNl Bfone General Plan. Security Deposit and Installation charges as applicable for Local/STD/ISD shall be taken from new customers.

For Home Plan UL 750 & UL 1350 : Fixed monthly Charges for telephone, Free Calls & MCU charges per pulse shall be as per existing plan of the customer.

For details on other tariff plans http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone_tariff.htm

For Existing Customers:

Existing customers has to do nothing! Peacefully browse internet at home. Tariff for esisting Home 900 & Home 900 PLUS customers will be automatically changed to Home 750 & Home 750 PLUS respectively applicable from the month of April.

Airtel has launched internet portal airtellive.com for it’s user base. The portal is built in association with Google using Google Personalized Home Pages. This portal is made for Airtel Broadband users. Users can get simple yet powerful applications for free. Applications & services includes email, documents, presentations, spreadsheets…etc. Portal is co-branded by Airtel & Google. Airtel also partnered with shaadi.com, 24×7 Guru.com & Naukri.com to provide exclusive offers to it’s users on portal.

This is similar to USB internet data card provided by Reliance & Tata Indicom on CDMA technology. But this is from Vodafone on GSM platform through EDGE technology . You have to insert a SIM card into this modem & connect it to your laptop or desktop to have internet access. Vodafone website has not specified anything about speed, but they claim “speed that?s three times faster than your wired dial-up connection”, anyway I don’t believe in that! In India it connects to Vodafone EDGE network, so you can have access to internet wherever Vodafone network exists. Vodafone says “Gives 3G Broadband speeds when you travel abroad” as 3G is not implemented in India.

Charges & Tariff:

Vodafone Mobile Connect USB Modem will cost you Rs.6,499. Aw! that’s too expensive, HCL Laptop is available for 13,990! There are two monthly plans:

Overall this service is too much expensive . But if you don’t worry to pay for enjoying mobility, then this is the better one to go for. I heard Tata Indicom & Reliance data cards are extremely slow even in Bangalore!
More details on Vodafone Website

Reliance has launched it?s Wi Max (World Wide Interoperability for Microwave Access) internet connection few months ago. Wi Max is based on the IEEE 802.16 d standard ,is expected to enable true broad band speeds over wireless net works at a cost point to enable mass ,market adoption. Reliance will install a Wi Max antenna on roof top of the client premises just like other satellite antenna and a cable till the modem. If the client has more than one computer then this connection can be shared through a wireless router. So it?s actually wireless from Reliance tower to your rooftop & wired from Wi Max antenna to router/modem. Tariff for this service are given here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dmvn8vc_7f3z3r6fz

Contact Person: Irfan M Shaikh, 9986018604, irfan AT laptopworld.co.in

Making something to work on Linux will sometimes becomes hassle. It will be even frustrating if the manufacturer don’t have support for linux. My fellow blogger Thejesh have written an “How to” on making Reliance netconnect USB card to work on Linux. Here it goes, completely extracted from his post (http://thejeshgn.com/2008/01/12/reliance-netconnect-usb-card-on-linux-howto/):

=============================================
1. Execute everything as root ( usually su in Ubuntu)
2.Check your card is recognized by the kernel
Code:
# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices
Output:
?..
?..
T: Bus=02 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=05 Cnt=02 Dev#= 4 Spd=12 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 1.01 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=16 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=12d1 ProdID=1001 Rev= 0.00
S: Manufacturer=Huawei Technologies
S: Product=Huawei Mobile
S: SerialNumber=HUAWEI EC3X1
C:* #Ifs= 2 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=100mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 3 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=pl2303
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 16 Ivl=128ms
E: Ad=8a(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
E: Ad=0b(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
I: If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=pl2303
E: Ad=83(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
E: Ad=06(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl=0ms
?..
?..
This depends on which company modem you are using. Mine is ZTE. Please check on the box for details. And then get the corresponding vendor and product id.

3.Now modprobe the driver
Code:
# modprobe usbserial vendor=0?12d1 product=0?1001

4.Should get something like this with dmesg
Code:
# dmesg
Output:
[ 2315.412106] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[ 2315.412508] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 2315.461938] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 2315.461945] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial Driver core
[ 2315.480382] drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for pl2303
[ 2315.480414] pl2303 2-6:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[ 2315.480608] usb 2-6: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 2315.480620] pl2303 2-6:1.1: pl2303 converter detected
[ 2315.480691] usb 2-6: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB1

5.Now edit your wvdial.conf file
Code:
# vi /etc/wvdial.conf
Add the following to that file
[Modem0]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 115200
SetVolume = 0
Dial Command = ATDT
Init1 = ATZ
FlowControl = Hardware (CRTSCTS)
[Dialer cdma]
Username = You Phone Number Here
Password = Your Password ? usually same as your phone number
Phone = #777
Stupid Mode = 1
Inherits = Modem0

6.Now run wvdial
Code:
# wvdial cdma
?> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.56
?> Cannot get information for serial port.
?> Initializing modem.
?> Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
?> Modem initialized.
?> Sending: ATDT#777
?> Waiting for carrier.
ATDT#777
CONNECT 230400
?> Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately.
?> Starting pppd at Sat Mar 3 22:55:20 2007
?> Pid of pppd: 24314
?> Using interface ppp0
?> local IP address 220.226.50.126
?> remote IP address 97.239.2.10
?> primary DNS address 202.138.103.100
?> secondary DNS address 202.138.96.2

Thats it ? you are now connected

7. In Ubuntu ? this can be done @ System->Administration->Networking.Ensure that your internet traffic goes through your ?Modem? by selecting the ppp.You should be able to browse now?.

Please have your queries & comments on Thej’s blog to have quick response as I don’t know much about this.