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Exatt Technologies

Submitted by kbk_75 on 25 December, 2005 - 13:02

Here are my experiences with Exatt Technologies.

I have been using their 512kbps plan for almost 1 year now. The download cap is 60GB per annum. I paid approx. 16,000/- for my 1 year subscription, which is EXCELLENT value for money. The maximum sustained download speeds I achieve are around 50KB/sec, which translates to approx 400kbps. I have NEVER seen a download exceed 55KB/sec, so their 512kbps plan has NEVER achieved 512kbps.

They have 24x7 tech support. The support staff are courteous, but often suggest frustratingly stupid things to the user, which may be of help when a novice user has a problem, but is very annoying when you are well versed in PC hardware and networking.

The connection is achieved over a LAN with my local cable TV operator. This poses a problem because my cable-wallahs servers are very unreliable and crash at least once a week. The cable-wallahs office is open from 10 am to 8 pm, so if their server crashes after 8 pm, there is no service until the next day at my end, which is very annoying.

Overall my experience with Exatt has been mixed. I feel their value for money is outstanding. Their tech-support is acceptable. The speed in downloads using a download manager is decent, although it does not achieve what they claim it will. Latency to commonly used sites is amongst the best I have encountered so far. (I have used VSNL dial-up, BSNL DSL, MTNL DSL and a few cable-wallah provided ISPs). Quality of service is poor. I face substantial packet loss problems and this seriously ruins my overall impression of Exatt's service. If they upgraded their infrastructure to provide more reliable service, I would rate them as one of the best ISPs I have encountered so far.

I would like to see them offer a 1mbps plan at a decent price with a 60-120GB per annum download cap and improve their quality of service.

That is my impression of Exatt's 512kbps plan.

Forums:

Karthik

27 December, 2005 - 19:42

Neat. 16k for 60GB @ 512 kbps is quite a bargain. How about upload speeds? And considering that you are a gamer, how about port-blocking? Do Exatt forward incoming ports upon request? The only time I did try playing online was when HL2 came out [on Steam], and that backfired for the above reason - Hathway refused to open required ports for the Steam client.

Nice review - cheers :)
-K

Upload speeds I have never really tested, but they are in the 20-30 KB/sec range. I have no problem uploading large files to overseas servers as well as streaming my webcam with audio. As for port forwarding, I have never had a game not work, so I have never needed to ask Exatt to forward any ports.

Edit: Jan 7, 2006.

Having said what I said above, I must add that I have also, at times, faced serious packed loss problems with their service. For instance, the past 2 weeks I am facing almost a 14-18% packet loss, which is ridiculous! Also the download speeds have fallen to around 256kbps lately.

Just thought I'd add that, to give a fair review.

I renewed my 512kbps plan with Exatt in Jan '06. My new plan was for 18 months' unlimited use and cost approx. Rs. 18,000/-. Again on the surface this seems like excellent value for money and indeed it was until the end of March. From Jan to March I was actually able to download at around 470-480kbps. Since April my download speed has been capped at 300kbps. I have also faced repeated prolonged periods of very poor QOS where latency has been a MAJOR issue. Their servers also disconnect you every 5 hours. In other words exactly after being online for 5 hours, you are automatically disconnected by them!

My repeated attempts to rectify the problems have led to nothing but frustration and endless holding-on to the telephone for upto 25 minutes at a time. Every effort to get them to remove the speed cap on my account has failed. According to their tech support people, "This is a broadband connection, not a leased line, so you cannot expect to get the actual speed of the connection because it is a shared connection. We only commit to providing 50-55% of the bandwidth to customers"

Have you ever heard such bullshit? For starters, it's not like I asked for an explanation as to the type of connection I had and secondly if they only commit to providing 50% of the bandwidth, why don't they charge 50% of the fee, or at very least make that clear to you when they take 18 months' worth of subscription in full in advance?

The bottom line is they have set my download speed to 300kbps in their software. Net result, I can no longer recommend dealing with Exatt as an ISP, and their customer service is now pathetic.

I have now been using for the past 6 months. since I am not a avid downloader, I use 12 GB/year-512 kbps @ Rs. 2700. I usually need 2 such plans for a year.

Though it may look affordable, it actually isn't because of the money you have to spend calling their customer care and waiting for 10 minutes to have someone attend your call.

The speeds are not as they should be 'reasonably expected'. I know its not possible to get exactly 512 kbps or above as advertised but 450-475 kbps is a reasonable expectation which cannot be fulfilled by this ISP.

Most of the times, I have faced a packet loss of 10-15% while 'pinging' their server 202.63.173.109.

Their customer care guy may sometimes be 'Bluffmasters'. I had spoken a few weeks before to a guy named 'Satish' who would always tell me that 'It your local operators problem, all is fine from our side' even when the problem was clearly on their side. And this is not just one incidence of it. I think this guy has been fired because I don't get him on the calls these days.

Also I have had latency issues such as pages not loading quickly or I have to many times hit the 'STOP' button and again hit the 'REFRESH' button, etc.

Overall, it does not give you a 512 kbps experience at all. The only reason I am using exatt is because I have no better option. I have already used in2cable,sify and pacenet but not satisfied with either.