After having used Reliance Wimax Broadband Service in Pune for well over a year now, it is time for another review of the service. During the past 16 months, we notice that the Base Stations (bs) usually go down once every week. The most common problem is that the DHCP server fails to respond, and your working lease which is set to 2 hours times out. You end up without a working connection for upwards of 2 hours a week at least. Apparently, Reliance uses Cisco equipment at the Base Stations for the routing and DHCP.

Calling up the Reliance Customer Care number rarely seems to help. Usually, the guys at their call center are never aware of a problem, and even when informed of a problem fail to respond appropriately. You get a Complaint number, which isn't very helpful to say the least.One of the things we really hate about Reliance is that you never get an honest answer. They are just too used to lying their backsides off for every topic including sales, tech support and billing. The Tech Support is truly world class! We mean that no other tech support in the whole world can be worse off! You are left wondering whether even Reliance's own personnel know what exactly they do leave alone what is going on. 

Patience is key during such problems. Just leave your computer running, and in roughly 2 - 6 hours you'll find you're connected again.

All in all, in the last 16 months, we've received an uptime of about 92 percent. While that doesn't sound great, it definitely beats not being connected.The service and speed is not bad at all when it works.

As a customer, ther's little you can do about the uptime. To ensure you get the highest possible uptime under the circumstances though, you can make sure that certain simple steps are taken care of.

• The Subscriber Station (SS) should not be placed near too much metal or glass.
• The SS needs to be very firmly and securely installed. It should not vibrate / rotate at all.
• You want to ensure that you have line of sight with the tower. Ask the guys installing your connection to show you where the tower is.
• If you livein a bungalow or row-house, make sure the SS is installed at a height. Use a strong 10 foot long 2 inch GI pipe to mount the SS on. You will need to have this pipe cemented down where the install team recommends installation.
• Ensure that the Ethernet cabling running from the SS to your premises is shielded from the vagiaries of the weather as much as possible. You don't want the cable cracking in the heat so that water can seep in whenever it rains.