The Internet has long become not only entertainment, but also a means of mass communication, and a tool for work. Many not only chat online with friends using social services for this purpose, but also earn money. In a word, there is no life without him.
If your provider works well, then you can remember about it only at the end of the month, when you need to pay for access to the Network. If not, then you will constantly think about its employees ... By the way, how does the Russian monopolist Rostelecom behave ? Reviews (Internet, IpTV and telephone - these are the areas of work of the mentioned provider) allow you to make a more or less holistic view of this.
Domestic monopolist
If you think that monopoly is bad, you are only partially right. For example, Rostelecom, which is largely a monopolist historically. It so happened that the only more or less reliable source of communication in the vastness of our vast country is still satellite channels and a wired telephone. We will not touch satellites in this article, but we'll talk about telephony. After the collapse of the USSR, the entire network went partly to some local industry leaders, and partly came under the control of that same Rostelecom. At that time, few were interested in this promising market, and therefore the industry was in a very poor condition.
Only in 2006 IDSL began to come to our country at a snail's pace, which at that time appeared in almost every major city. By today's standards, prices were monstrous: from one to five rubles per wretched megabyte! However, after Dial UP this was also a blessing.
It was then that the company began to develop rapidly. Given that almost all telephone networks already belonged to her, it was not difficult to do this. Along the way, another circumstance became clear: the inhabitants of even small towns, not to mention villages and villages, could not at all expect to get Internet access in any other way, except by means of Rostelecom.
Even now, their choice is not rich: either a USB “whistle” with unpredictable properties, or a more or less stable wired connection. Why did we tell all this? It is important to understand what Rostelecom is. Reviews (the Internet will not let you lie) largely depend on what network and in what condition the local branch got in this or that case.
Positive points
If you know those people who are forced (or chose it themselves) to communicate with this provider, then you probably heard a lot of negative reviews about him. But do not judge so one-sidedly. Positive characteristics are also enough. Let us get to know them.
Firstly, no provider has such a geography of coverage. And this is not only about the fact that no other company will go to a remote village. We constantly have to deal with a situation where even in large cities the private sector (and even individual apartment buildings on the outskirts) is forced to either use a USB modem or pull a telephone cable. The reviews indicate that Rostelecom in this case is the optimal solution, since it allows you to get a sane Internet at relatively low prices.
Oddly enough, but in most cases everything works very stably. Compare this to small home-based companies or offers from mobile operators, when the speed can increase and decrease almost every minute!
The price of a standard connection package has recently included the cost of telephony, Internet and digital television services. In most of our regions, you will not see such offers at anyone else. In addition, it is worth noting the constantly changing tariffs and the emergence of new services. Users themselves say that in recent years, the provider in this sense has become much better.
About legal content ...
Again, only a limited number of domestic companies are doing something real in terms of giving consumers access to legal content. There are no sites where you can buy it, nor any encouragement for such actions.
Judging by the reviews, Rostelecom is one of the few providers that have made significant progress in this matter recently. So, the Zabava service is the best confirmation of this. There are a huge number of films, music, games and programs that can be legally acquired. However, most consumers nevertheless notice that their prices could have been more modest ...
Negative reviews
Negative opinions about the provider are also enough. So, people often complain about the incompetence of employees who are responsible for connecting and servicing subscribers. There really is such a problem, and Rostelecom is considered the leader. The Internet, a telephone from this provider is often not popular for this very reason.
On the forums you can find thousands of complaints about how the masters cannot reach the connected subscriber within a week, so the latter has to do everything on his own. There are also reports of rudeness, as well as the complete inability of employees to solve more or less complex technical problems.
What to do?
You yourself can’t do anything for sure. If you have lost the Internet through Rostelecom, you should immediately call the head office in Moscow. Customer reviews indicate that after such calls on the ground, they begin to work much more lively. Often you can find complaints about the poor quality of communication, the inconsistency of the Internet speed, which is stated in the tariff, with the real situation. However, very often it is not the employees of the territorial offices themselves who are to blame, but the top management of the company, for many years now not taking any steps to replace equipment and repair networks that have not been updated since the days of the USSR. Until now, archaic relay equipment has been widely distributed in automatic telephone exchanges in many regions, and only in the last two or three years have they begun to slowly replace them with new models.
However, the matter nevertheless moved forward: customers report that a slow (but still ongoing) process leads to increased stability of connection and normalization of tariff rates. In any case, Rostelecom ( which can be connected to the Internet from any territorial office) is gradually starting to expand its audience.
Cost
We have already said that the price of services is relatively low. That is what is “comparative,” since if you look at the tariffs of operators in large cities, the picture is far from joyful ...
So, if the average Rostelecom tariff of 5 Mbit / s costs from 500 to 1000 (and higher) rubles (depending on the region), then in any large city for the same money you will receive a minimum of 100 Mbit / s! And this is not to mention the data transfer rate. For Rostelecom subscribers, it rarely exceeds 750 Kbps, while users of other providers have access to 20-30 Mbps !!!
Other oddities ...
And this despite the fact that after the new firmware for the IpTV set-top box, subscribers can watch movies from it only by downloading them first to the company’s server. Users are perplexed why this was all invented, and they rarely use censorship expressions. And in fact: if you decide to upload your home video size of 1.5-2 GB, then it will be loaded at least 7-8 hours!
So in this regard, Rostelecom, the reviews (the Internet is of particular interest to us) about which we are considering, shows itself far from the best side.
About tariff plans
And what about Rostelecom? Internet rates are not too good. If earlier new proposals were offered regularly, and they could be changed directly from the “My Account”, then in its new version you won’t even be able to see what options exist in principle. Users say that most often when you click on the “Change tariff plan” button, a message appears: “No tariffs found for the transition.”
So instead of a convenient remote “office” you will have to go to the nearest office with the hope that they will be able to clarify the possibility of connecting some kind of high-speed tariff. Fortunately, at least Rostelecom can pay for the Internet with the same convenience, without leaving home.
All about speed ...
As for some problems with download speed, there are most negative comments in this area. In particular, we are talking about situations where the speed of the Internet by Rostelecom on the tariff was very different from the declared one.
For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that sometimes you can observe downloads from external sources (not from local networks) at a speed of 10 Mbit / s, while a maximum of 4 Mbit was available at a rate! However, this is from the category of fantastic luck. Much more often, users complain that at a tariff of 6-7 Mbit / s, the Internet speed test by Rostelecom gives a maximum of 1-2 Mbit.
However, the company’s lawyers quickly found a way out: on the main page of the official website (with a small underline, in the clarifications) there is a phrase with the following content: “The speed of access to the Internet is uncertain” and “Speed ​​... depends on the actions of third parties, organizations and individuals ". In general, users unanimously say that even if there is a real problem, you can not do anything with it. We'll have to either put up with the existing state of things, or move on to another provider.
How to test the tariff rate?
How to find out the exact speed of the Internet Rostelecom? The easiest way is to use any torrent client: it will determine it with a high degree of reliability. If you need more accurate data, use the Speedtest service: it determines the incoming and outgoing speed, provider, and also provides other information.
That's how Rostelecom established itself. Reviews, the Internet in which constantly appears, indicate that under certain conditions it can be very good, but you should not expect anything fantastic.