Tech Review: Hathway DOCSIS 3.0 Network based 50 Mbps Internet Plans

It's almost a week since I got the fastest Broadband I have ever used in India. I am talking about the recently launched Hathway's DOCSIS 3.0 Network. Infact it is faster than what I used in UK - 20 Mbps from Virgin on Fibre. Time to write a review while comparing it with my previous experience with MTNL. The last plan which I used was MTNL 8 Mbps connection paying INR 1050 (excluding tax) with a download limit of 28 GB.

Pros -

1. Lightning fast speed which is comparable to many other developed countries. Also this comes at very affortable rates. For pre-paid subscribers you pay INR 3370 including taxes but excluding Installation charges for quaterly subscription. This is for HD3 Plan with 25 GB download limit per month and 1 MPBS post 25 GB limit. The upload speed is also excellent - at 10 Mbps speed it is just what I wanted to uplod my HD videos on youtube.

2. You can watch all favourite recorded International TV soaps on youtube and other site owing to the excellent speed.

3. You can play online games without any lags.

4. Free Public Static IP. You will not get this free of cost with many other Broadband service providers.
5. No manual login/PPPoE login required, the Internet is always on.

6. Didn't find any Port Blockings as my IP Phone continues to work.

7. Easy Network configuration for a layman.

8. 24/7 Helpdesk.

Cons -

1. Sales team not trained enough to answer any technical question. They don't know the difference between Private IP and Public IP. They are unable to say on which Interface the IP will get assigned. I had to wait for the Modem to arrive and connect it to my Router to understand that the IP gets assigned on the LAN Interface of the Modem which connects to your PC or Router.

2. The Bandwidth usage on their website is not password protected and you can check some one else's usage if you know their user name.

3. The Bandwidth usage doesn't give hourly usage details. The MTNL website is much better which provides hourly session based usage details.

4. Though it is a 24/7 Helpdesk, the executives only answer standard set of questions and are not sufficiently trained on technical front.

Other Technical details -

1. The Internet is offered through traditional TV cables, but end user receives it on Ethernet.
2. I have been provided with a Skyworth CM4100 modem. I was not provided with any manual and was a bit sceptical since not much documentation is yet available on the Net. Till the point of time your Modem is activated on the Network you can connect your PC to it's Ethernet (LAN) port and through DHCP auto-config you will be assigned an IP 192.168.100.2 . You can thus connet to the Modem's web interface by keying in http://192.168.100.1 on your web browser. But please note that this is a read-only interface, doesn't require any login. You cannot configure anything here since all Provisioning will be done remotely by Hathway. The funny thing is that once your Modem is activated by Hathway remotely and you are live on the Network, you will get assigned a Static Public IP through DHCP when you connect your PC. I have used a D-Link DSL-2750U ADSL Router with Russian firmware (learnt the same from India Broadband Forum) and now LAN Port 1 is an Ethernet WAN Port which is assigned the Static IP.
3. Once your Modem is registered on the Network and you can access Internet, you can still access the Modem's Web Interface by keying in the HFC IP Address (on the Web Browser) which you can find out when you connect the Modem's LAN Interface with the Laptop directly.

4. You can register on a website like dyndns.com or noip.com and register a DNS name for your IP and may be host some Web Servers on the Net.

5. You can introduce Cloud based Content Filtering at Home by using OpenDNS.com DNS Servers - 208.67.222.222 , 208.67.220.220 , register yourself on the site and block websites based on categories. OpenDNS.com also provides you a Dashboard which provides excellent report about the websites being used on your Home Network.

6. Do remember that since this is a very high speed Net connection and you need to decide very quickly on any video streaming site whether you want to watch the Video, because as soon as you click almost the entire video gets cache/downloaded within seconds and that gets counted against your monthly Bandwidth limit.
7. I did not find that there was any locking of Internet associated with the MAC ID of the Router and Internet can be accessed from any device.

Will keep updating this article as and when things strike me. Do get back to me if you have any questions. Drop me your email address and I will respond back.