Tata Photon+ - High Speed Internet (EV-DO)

I purchased recently the Tata Photon+ High Speed Internet broadband Device. The product vendor is Huawei and service provider is Tata Tele Services. The device cost now is around Rs.2,499/- They have various plans based on time limit and download limit.

Speeds:

• At home I get signal strength (93% - 99%). The speeds I am getting are 300 kbps to 1200 kbps download. I was able to download  105 MB of puppy linux in around 20 minutes. Average download speed would have been around 660 kbps.
• Overall browsing speed and experience is great.
• Since the device is USB based, the power problems at home are isolated with this device. Normally external broadband modems will need power.

Cons:

• I have tried the Photon TV trial offer of watching TV using Photon+ device. I would rate the experience as poor. Though the device is theoretically capable of 3.2 Mbps download, I still experience buffering problem like my broadband.
• Watching YouTube. There is some weird problem with this device. I use Opera for browsing. When I visit YouTube to experience high-speed, I see serious problems. The video does not play at all. This may be specific to my setup and may not be device problem. But I will check again and update this blog. If anyone else faced the problem, please comment.
• I use broadband for voice over IP calls connecting to office network. There is a real serious problem here. When I am in conference call, I can hear other talk very clear. But when I speak they hear my voice breaking. This has been the case last one week. As a technology EV-DO has higher download rate than upload. But it is hard for me to understand that uplink is not even capable of taking voice clearly.