Technology keeps changing… After I replaced my Airtel EDGE data card with a Reliance USB modem, I breathed a sigh of relief, but not for long. I’m habituated to opening umpteen tabs on Firefox -a habit I picked up while using my Airtel PCMCIA data card on account of its mule like pace.  I don’t know whether I’ve become faster or Reliance has become slower -in their effort to promote their mobile broadband solution, but I started finding  my wait time between pages was steadily rising and getting things done on time was getting progressively difficult, take for example trying to book a Tatkal railway ticket…

Blocky images are quite common -however it seems acceptable when watching from about 10 feet away

Tata was one service provider I had not tried either for telephone services or data. The only thing that I knew was their broadband services were excellent in some areas and pathetic in another. What they had in common with Reliance and other government bodies like those that make your voter ID card was the fine art of misspelling your name while keying in your hand written form. If you have a Reliance phone or a data solution, that’s a very big problem as they wont rectify their mistake without you providing fresh proof of who you are. (which you already gave them in the first place). Turning a blind eye to this problem is not very good either as when you surrender your connection, a check by the wrong name will be mailed to your address which you cannot encash. I’m sure Tata has the same hiccups. (The customer care however is more polite than the Reliance guys)

NDTV 24 x 7 smudgy but watchable

After getting the USB data card, I checked the performance and it was very good. I played a video from youtube at high resolution and there was no visible jerking in the video. I was also happy at its performance when browsing, and the album pictures in Facebook changed instantly at every click as though the server was on a local network. On roaming, the connection was slow (comparable to the Reliance USB modem that I had been using). The mobile broadband works only in the bigger cities. There is also no keypad in the connection manager, so in an emergency you cannot place voice calls or send text messages like you could with the older Reliance and Airtel software which accompanies their data cards. The USB modem does seem to have something like a headset socket on one side though.

This super annoying alphanumeric string pops up every 10 seconds and stays on for 5 more... 10 seconds ago it was exactly over his eyes!!

The Internet (mobile broadband) service has not been consistent though, on the weekends it is very difficult to get pages. As I’m on a time bound plan, it becomes even more frustrating when you get the ‘waiting for http://www.xyz.com’ message in the status bar and nothing happens . If this is the situation in Delhi at full signal strength, I’m sure the other locations are not far behind. Weekends are the time when you want to be online, chat, write, research or watch Photon TV -if you have subscribed to it.  Since Photon TV needs the connection to be dialed, without Internet access, there is no TV, so whether it is ‘no Internet’ or ‘no  TV’ it still sucks! I hope this is not a regular occurrence and that Tata fixes this soon.

Occasionaly be prepared for this pesky Ferris wheel... feels like you are on youtube...

I had laughed off the Photon TV, as it piggy backed on the Internet connection and I felt that only a fool on a time based plan would opt to watch a few TV channels at the expense of their Internet time. Cable TV would have been much cheaper with all the channels included 24 x 7 x 30.  However I soon started realizing that since I had unlimited broadband access at work and needed my Photon connection only for short durations of time at home and during travel, (and particularly since I limited my Facebook access to a maximum of 1/2 an hour per day )

In south Delhi at full signal strength

I found that I could not use the full number of hours that I w

as paying for. Since I was also traveling a lot, I thought it would be good to convert these hours into TV time. What was better was that I could minimize the Adobe Air TV app and switch to it when some interesting news was read out and then switch back to my work.

When I first ran the app, I was required to register among other things with my phone number and email address. I was sent an activation code by text message which I then entered into the app and my free trial of 30 minutes began. I was generally happy with the setup as I was more interested in the news than those unending TV serials, movies or sports. The next day, I was presented with a license agreement and accepted the option of subscribing to 10 channels for Rs. 29/- I chose most of the news channels and BBC & CNN under International. Time to list the Pros and Cons…

I like the My Channels link which shows me channels I have subscribed to.

PROS:

• Innovative idea of providing TV over wireless broadband
• A good way of keeping in touch with the news for road warriors on the move (provided Tata covers the city you are in for mobile broadband service)
• On days that the bandwidth is OK, you can surf as well as watch TV simultaneously.
• Software for both the Mac & Windows is available on the modem itself which emulates a CDROM drive.
• The My Channels link shows you the channels you are subscribed to. It is quite annoying to click a Channel mistakenly and be presented with a license agreement.

CONS:

• Service on weekends is typically bad (Probably network gets overloaded)
• Mobile broadband works only in big cities and therefore so does the Photon TV service which depends on it.
• Even at full signal strength, sometimes there is a black screen, or a disconnection. (window closes even if the Internet connection is on) or picture disintegrates into blocks.
• TV service is expensive even at “Rs. 75/- for all channels” as the Internet connection charges get added to it.
• Very limited coverage of International channels (BBC & CNN only)
• Highly annoying alphanumeric string appears floating at different positions on the screen every 10 seconds and remains on screen for 5 seconds all through the transmission
• Smudgy picture on a 19″ screen makes it unsuitable for watching movies in full screen mode, but is OK for watching news at a distance.
• Annoying pop up and redirection to Yahoo in the default browser on successfully negotiating the Internet connection on Windows.
• Network keeps showing as mostly CDMA or sometimes Hybrid on the Mac, unlike HSIA on Windows, so it is difficult to make out whether you are on CDMA or HSIA (Mobile broadband) on the Mac and are left to guess by the access speed.
• Unsubscribing from a channel is not immediately apparent and easy as subscribing to one.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Hopefully the service will improve in the near future. For people who already have their own TV connections, either CATV or DTH, this service is absolutely useless.

• However for a person who does not have a Television connection at home or for someone who travels a lot to cities which are covered by Tata’s mobile broadband connection and uses TV less for entertainment and more for information, the Tata Photon TV service provides good value for money.

• Since my plan is time based and not data based, I have not bothered to ascertain the amount of data used for a particular amount of time. I recommend that users of data based plans keep monitoring their usage or they might end up paying an astronomical bill at the end of the month.
• As I am single and travel a lot, it serves my purpose very well. Probably it might still serve my purpose after getting married. I say probably because I travel to rural places where there is no mobile broadband coverage… so no TV either… but at Rupees 29 it is not so bad to have a backup to catch up on the news Unfortunately it does not work on any other broadband connection

Overall a good concept which has been poorly executed.

Note: The Tata Photon TV service has progressively worsened. As of today (20th Sep 2010) I can barely connect to the service and mostly only see the rotating Youtube style disc. It was the same when I checked a few days back too. Ever since I activated Photon TV, I have been able to watch TV for an  hour or two  at most in the 4 odd months of my subscription. (I am not a regular TV viewer, but whenever I tried, it did not work). What is worse is that even if I use 2 hours of my Photon 700 plan, I get a message by email saying that I have crossed 75% of my usage limit which freaks me out and I stop using it right away. Then they also show some unintelligible calculations in my bill and it crosses over Rs. 1100/-. Thankfully they have come up with an “unlimited” scheme for Rs. 950. I have migrated to the scheme and deactivated Photon TV. I have no problems with their broadband speed though -at least in Delhi -it does very occasionally conk out for a few hours though. Outside it is another story and since I travel  a lot, I pay Tata for free for months on end as the places I travel to either have no or bad network service. 

I often listen to the news like the radio and keep working on other things online and switch over to the TV app only when something interesting comes up.

 

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