Hello,

We the people from Anushaktinagar / BARC colony, Mumbai have a lot of Internet issues for quite sometime now. There are only two Internet providers available in the colony -

1. MTNL
2. Local Internet / Cable TV provider (Anusat Association)

Both have their issues with bandwidth and have sub-standard quality in terms of service and support. The ongoing situation with COVID-19 has further pushed the need to work from remote and the current internet infrastructure has not been able to support this.

Here are some issues from both of these providers -

1. Frequent disconnection - On and average there's 25-35% packet loss which makes any kind of screen-share or Video conference extremely difficult.
2. Slow speeds - I have a plan of 4 Mbps (Download/Upload) on Local ISP (Anusat association), the average speed during the day is pretty bad goes below 1 Mbps,  the result was the same during the day time when I upgraded the plan to 40 Mbps in the month of March-April 2020. MTNL is on 8 Mbps Plan, it is more adhoc than the other. Most of the time MTNL doesn't work or has unusable speeds screenshot attached*
3. Poor Infrastructure - The cables and connections in buildings are very adhoc, wires are put across from building to building via trees. Our colony is very beautiful and we are quite closer to the nature around us, we have a lot of monkeys which come daily in search of food from the near by greens. Being monkeys they like to jump from one tree to another and this often causes the internet wire to get disconnected / damaged.
4. No Support (Mostly for MNTL) - Due to COVID-19 the support staff has been reduced and for MTNL the support is unreachable. The local provider at-least respond and try to fix in whatever way they can, but this is a larger problem with in-adequate Bandwidth and bad infrastructure setup.
5. Wireless Internet (4G / 3G dongle) - Connectivity is good only in the parts closer to the colony gates, most other buildings manage to get 2G (mostly with MTNL) or at best a ok-ish 3G connection.

If providers like Jio, Airtel, Tata, Hathaway etc. are allowed to provide service, the residents of Anushaktinagar / BARC colony would have a better time working from home and at-least have a NORMAL internet experience.

This is an attempt to make our voice heard because action needs to be taken right now to solve these problems. Social Distancing and Work from home will continue in the days to come until the COVID situation normalize. Please support this campaign so that change happens for good. Anushaktinagar (BARC colony), Mumbai is one of the biggest Government colony in India and a lot of people living here need good and stable internet connection.

In this era of COVID-19, Internet is not a luxury but a BASIC necessity, as the old saying goes... Roti, Kapda, Makaan and now Internet!

Note: This is written based on my personal experience with Internet connectivity and of experiences of my friends from colony. I have active subscription of both providers - Local ISP (Anusat Association) & MTNL. Suggestion and feedback to improve this campaign are most welcome!