Hello ardent readers,
I've been staying in Dombivli (dombsville as my friends like to call it) for more than 25 years and have seen it grow from a little central railway station to a sprawling semi-urban heaven.
Thanks to a highly educated population Dombivli started to endorsed internet quiet early and as early as 2001 we had our local internet vendors trying to woo us with their WORLD BEST plans ;)
Off-course there was the ever so (not)reliable BSNL and mobile internet (3G & 2G) connection like Airtel & Vodafone. But for this post I'll be ignoring those two options.
So back to our local ISPs, Currently there are 6 ISP's (that i know of) in Dombivli.
(Please add any ISP's that I have not reviewed in comments ... would be great if you can tell them about their service too)
Major players among them whose services I have used are Hathway, 5Net, D-VoiS Broadband.
There are other services like MG Net which have come up recently; but as I have not used them myself I cannot comment much; if any of you have used any other service in Dombivli other than the 3 I have detailed bellow then please leave your comments; this will be helpful for me & anyone who is reading this post to choose the best ISP
I have rated the service, network, customer support and other features of these ISP's so that you can choose the best ISP for you; description of each is given bellow (after the comparison tables)
Main Stats (All figures are recorded with 2Mbps Unlimited Plans)
Other features out of 10 (1 lowest & 10 highest)
1. Hathway:
This has been around for ages. Its said that 'maturity brings out quality' and I can say from my experience that this DOES NOT HOLD TRUE in Hathway's case. Their service is as pathetic & expensive as it was 10 years back. Having said that their customer-support is better than others. But their cheesy sales guys, lack of extra services and ridgid rules have made me bang my head once too often [:(]
Hathway in Dombivli is totally a different beast as compared to Hathway Mumbai. Most plans & services provided by Mumbai Hathway are not even available in Hathway Dombivli. A simple example is that the maximum plan speed (mind you.. not the actual speed) offered by Hathway Dombivli is 2 Mbps where-as Hathway Mumbai has plans for 25Mbps as well (in this case plan speed and actual speed are almost same)
The worst problem with Hathway is its local support. Don't be surprised if you have to wait in office of Hathway for more than 2 hours and not get any work done. The staff is generally not customer friendly and you end-up speaking more to the security guy than the actual staff.
One positive is that Hathway consistently provides speed of 150+ Kbps (on 2 Mbps plan) come what may. this is not the case with the other 2 services. I would have been satisfied even if the constant speed was 210Kbps....
2. 5-Net:
This is quiet a famous name in broadband circles in Mumbai. 5Net provides much better & affordable quarterly plans as compared to Hathway but not as affordable as D-VoiS.
Service wise they are quiet better than Hathway as well as D-VoiS.
I was getting better speed (both upload and download) on 5-Net on 2Mbps plan than Hathway and D-VoiS. Plus the speed on streaming websites likes YouTube was just phenomenal (hathway sucked at this .. but D-VoiS was pretty decent in this). The biggest plus point was the availability of LAN gaming on 5Net. From what I know FIFA & CounterStrike tourneys and regular servers are in abundance. I myself have played Multiplayer BattleFiled 3 & 4 on XBOX 360 using 5Net without any issues.
Where 5-Net shines is in torrents; I received around 1Mbps speed while downloading Ubuntu 14. For most other torrents too i consistently got 250Kbps speed (I guess its more down to torrents downloaded by me not been used by other local users)
The biggest negative I encountered was that the service used to go down once or twice in few months for few hours. And sometimes speed used to go bellow 50kbps (on a 2Mbps plan) during peak hours (eveing 7 to 10 & on weekends). Similarly don't expect the office staff to be very helpful. But at-least you don't get to wait for long time to get your queries clarified or work done.
3. D-VoiS :
So to say; D-VoiS is the CHEAP and BAD cousin of 5Net will be quiet appropriate.
Interestingly the same local vendor who provides 5net also provides D-VoiS. So some issues which I had mentioned for 5Net are present in D-VoiS too. The biggest advantage of this service is its very light on your pocket as compared to above two.
Speed for 2 Mbps plan is generally around 200Kbps (download) which i believe is quiet decent. Torrent speed is quiet decent and 160-200Kbps is the norm.
I played network heavy Elder Scrolls Online on PlayStation 4 using the 2Mbps connection and disconnections were quiet minimum. The only place where the game out-of-sync and got disconnected due to less bandwidth was in the EPIC Battles which includes more than 50 online players simultaneously going head-to-head. (But i guess that scenario will not hit most online players). Playing Destiny on PlayStation 4 was quiet good and till date have never got disconnected.Having said that; I have not come across any CounterStrike or FIFA servers on this network.
This is one service which gets disconnected more regularly than the above two, Also the speed can go up and down quiet erratically. Mostly in evenings the speed can go bellow 100Kbps as well. But after 10:30pm its fairly consistent at 150-200 Kbps. Again as both D-Vios and 5net share same local distributor the staff problem is present here too.
I hope this article will help you to choose your ISP wisely. Please leave a comment bellow as to how I can improve the article. Also please feel free to add any other grievance / problems /benefits i might have missed.
I've been staying in Dombivli (dombsville as my friends like to call it) for more than 25 years and have seen it grow from a little central railway station to a sprawling semi-urban heaven.
Thanks to a highly educated population Dombivli started to endorsed internet quiet early and as early as 2001 we had our local internet vendors trying to woo us with their WORLD BEST plans ;)
Off-course there was the ever so (not)reliable BSNL and mobile internet (3G & 2G) connection like Airtel & Vodafone. But for this post I'll be ignoring those two options.
So back to our local ISPs, Currently there are 6 ISP's (that i know of) in Dombivli.
(Please add any ISP's that I have not reviewed in comments ... would be great if you can tell them about their service too)
Major players among them whose services I have used are Hathway, 5Net, D-VoiS Broadband.
There are other services like MG Net which have come up recently; but as I have not used them myself I cannot comment much; if any of you have used any other service in Dombivli other than the 3 I have detailed bellow then please leave your comments; this will be helpful for me & anyone who is reading this post to choose the best ISP
I have rated the service, network, customer support and other features of these ISP's so that you can choose the best ISP for you; description of each is given bellow (after the comparison tables)
Main Stats (All figures are recorded with 2Mbps Unlimited Plans)
| Feature | Hathway | 5-Net | D-VoiS |
| Regular Download Speed (Kbps) | 160-210 | 200 - 220 | 130 - 210 |
| Torrent Download Speed (Kbps) | 160-180 | 200 - 255 | 130 - 255 |
| ~1Mbps in some situvations | ~1Mbps in some situvations | ||
| Upload Speed (Kbps) | 120 -150 | 180 - 190 | 90 - 150 |
| LAN Gaming | |||
| FIFA | No | Yes | No |
| CouterStrike | No | Yes | No |
| Youtube (Runs videos Bufferless) | |||
| 144p | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 240p | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 360p | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 480p | No | Yes | Yes |
| 720p (HD) | No | Yes | Most of time |
| 1080p (HD) | No | Yes | No |
Other features out of 10 (1 lowest & 10 highest)
| Feature | Hathway | 5-Net | D-VoiS |
| Telephonic Customer Support | 8 | 7 | 4 |
| Local Support | 1 (Even -1) | 5 | 5 |
| Variety of Plans | 6 | 10 | 8 |
| Installation Time & Support | 10 | 6 | 6 |
| Payment modes & flexibility | 9 | 7 | 7 |
| Doorstep payment collection | No | Yes | Yes |
1. Hathway:
This has been around for ages. Its said that 'maturity brings out quality' and I can say from my experience that this DOES NOT HOLD TRUE in Hathway's case. Their service is as pathetic & expensive as it was 10 years back. Having said that their customer-support is better than others. But their cheesy sales guys, lack of extra services and ridgid rules have made me bang my head once too often [:(]
Hathway in Dombivli is totally a different beast as compared to Hathway Mumbai. Most plans & services provided by Mumbai Hathway are not even available in Hathway Dombivli. A simple example is that the maximum plan speed (mind you.. not the actual speed) offered by Hathway Dombivli is 2 Mbps where-as Hathway Mumbai has plans for 25Mbps as well (in this case plan speed and actual speed are almost same)
The worst problem with Hathway is its local support. Don't be surprised if you have to wait in office of Hathway for more than 2 hours and not get any work done. The staff is generally not customer friendly and you end-up speaking more to the security guy than the actual staff.
One positive is that Hathway consistently provides speed of 150+ Kbps (on 2 Mbps plan) come what may. this is not the case with the other 2 services. I would have been satisfied even if the constant speed was 210Kbps....
2. 5-Net:
This is quiet a famous name in broadband circles in Mumbai. 5Net provides much better & affordable quarterly plans as compared to Hathway but not as affordable as D-VoiS.
Service wise they are quiet better than Hathway as well as D-VoiS.
I was getting better speed (both upload and download) on 5-Net on 2Mbps plan than Hathway and D-VoiS. Plus the speed on streaming websites likes YouTube was just phenomenal (hathway sucked at this .. but D-VoiS was pretty decent in this). The biggest plus point was the availability of LAN gaming on 5Net. From what I know FIFA & CounterStrike tourneys and regular servers are in abundance. I myself have played Multiplayer BattleFiled 3 & 4 on XBOX 360 using 5Net without any issues.
Where 5-Net shines is in torrents; I received around 1Mbps speed while downloading Ubuntu 14. For most other torrents too i consistently got 250Kbps speed (I guess its more down to torrents downloaded by me not been used by other local users)
The biggest negative I encountered was that the service used to go down once or twice in few months for few hours. And sometimes speed used to go bellow 50kbps (on a 2Mbps plan) during peak hours (eveing 7 to 10 & on weekends). Similarly don't expect the office staff to be very helpful. But at-least you don't get to wait for long time to get your queries clarified or work done.
3. D-VoiS :
So to say; D-VoiS is the CHEAP and BAD cousin of 5Net will be quiet appropriate.
Interestingly the same local vendor who provides 5net also provides D-VoiS. So some issues which I had mentioned for 5Net are present in D-VoiS too. The biggest advantage of this service is its very light on your pocket as compared to above two.
Speed for 2 Mbps plan is generally around 200Kbps (download) which i believe is quiet decent. Torrent speed is quiet decent and 160-200Kbps is the norm.
I played network heavy Elder Scrolls Online on PlayStation 4 using the 2Mbps connection and disconnections were quiet minimum. The only place where the game out-of-sync and got disconnected due to less bandwidth was in the EPIC Battles which includes more than 50 online players simultaneously going head-to-head. (But i guess that scenario will not hit most online players). Playing Destiny on PlayStation 4 was quiet good and till date have never got disconnected.Having said that; I have not come across any CounterStrike or FIFA servers on this network.
This is one service which gets disconnected more regularly than the above two, Also the speed can go up and down quiet erratically. Mostly in evenings the speed can go bellow 100Kbps as well. But after 10:30pm its fairly consistent at 150-200 Kbps. Again as both D-Vios and 5net share same local distributor the staff problem is present here too.
I hope this article will help you to choose your ISP wisely. Please leave a comment bellow as to how I can improve the article. Also please feel free to add any other grievance / problems /benefits i might have missed.
