Wireless Internet -anyone using Reliance NetConnect?

Peacefulplanet

Hi there,

have been reading alot in the forum on wireless internet access, up to now it seems a Reliance NetConnect card would be cheap and the best tool available. Is there anyone on this forum actually using their services? How is coverage, can I expect to go online almost anywhere?

http://www.relianceinfo.com/Infocomm..._rconnect.html

"The Network today covers
4500+ towns and cities and 3,00,000 (sic!) + villages
Most highways and railway tracks"

Any firsthand experience would be very interesting...What about speed, I need to use Skype for my job - do you reckon that's possible?

Is there a minimum contract period or do I simply pay for every month I am using the service?

Thanks a lot for your answers!

icetea

Yes we use the Reliance card. It works everywhere (don't know about remote villages, though), but beware: IT'S SLOW. Downloading stuff takes a while and no, you cannot use Skype with that connection, any call just disconnects it. It's mostly good for email and browsing, when you are travelling.

Peacefulplanet

Hi icetea,

thanks a lot for your reply, helps a lot! Any tips on how to make cheap international calls from India? Guess I'll have to go to an internet cafe with a landline from time to time.

best regards

Nick-H

...Most PCO (public call offices)...

But some of the internet cafes offer even cheaper rates.

iWay --- 3 rupees a minute.

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icetea

What's this iWay stuff, Nick?

Nick-H

...Sify iWay

A chain of Internet cafes in, according to their site (above link), 150 cities.

Quite a few of them in Chennai: look out for the red iWay sign.

icetea

hmm..it's not so pleasant talking from Internet cafes..

Nick-H

At iway you do get a cubicle to yourself, you are not sharing your call with the browsers.

But calling from home is much nicer, of course. Why don't you get a BSNL line and DataOne, or Airtel etc?

Peacefulplanet

thanks all for your replies...i wont be staying at one place, so bsnl or airtel landlines are not an option.

minimum contract period is one year, i guess? TIA

mtyzxlm

Mail sent from Reliance Rconnect get flagged as spam and most of my mail goes to the spam box of the recipient. Spamhaus.org has flagged the IP ranges of Reliance Infocomm as an originator of spam. Check out this URL.

The Spamhaus Project - Security

The net effect of this is my mail sent when connected through RConnect gets flagged as spam by most antispam engines.

So check this out before you buy rconnect or netconnect.

Rxrich

I've read about using Skype from Internet Cafe's...I have Skype on my desktop computer at home...how do I use Skype to make calls from India to the USA?
I can go to the Skype website and sign in and I have some credit in Skype out...but I dont know how to get to the Skype window from the site...when I bring up Skype at home I have the Skype window and can just make a call by hitting the green phone icon...am I missing something?...thanks for any help
Rich

fly2raven

We use the Reliance data card and it works but as it was said before, it is slow. A friend of our uses a card from Airtel and he says that it is better and faster.

mairangi_vice

The software needs to be installed on the computer you're using, ask the cafe owner, or, you can just install it without their knowledge. They may not like this though...

cmdunn1972

Reliance data cards aren't compatible with Macs. First of all, the software is loaded on a mini-disk, so it won't go into a Mac laptop with a slot load. Secondly, the installation software is written only for Windows (not such a hurdle for Parallels users except for the slot load part). Thirdly, the data card itself doesn't fit in the Mac.

We found this out the hard way. My husband's company pays for Reliance data cards for internet connection at home. (He carries a Windows laptop for work.) We wanted to try it on my Mac, but came upon all those hurdles.

Incidentally, when the Reliance tech support people came to his office and my husband asked them if they had a Mac version, they asked, "What's a Mac?"

I thought any other Mac users thinking about Reliance for internet might want to know to look at other options.

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shashank.aggarwal

You are right..Mac anyways are rare commodity in India...they are very hard to find..I am not seen many of them...10 years back some were there in my father's office as he was into printing business... and say some of them in a computer institute by name of Aptech...

They are not at all popular in India and I am sure 95% of computer 'literate' people would have the same expression "What is Mac ?"...

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