Reliance WebWorld review

I had to download some large files (1gb in size!) and my home broadband connection just wasn't cutting it. So in search of a faster internet connection, I ended up at the Reliance WebWorld internet center / cafe in New Friends Colony. The experience was terrible -- someone at Reliance, hire some real programmers! The sign-up process was four steps but each step took about 5-7 minutes of processing. I asked one of the attendants why this was the case and he gave be the bizarre explanation of "Well, it has to check your desired user ID against the entire national database of Reliance WebWorld user IDs." Huh? And then, once I was logged in, it was this very crippled kiosk shell on top of Windows with the filesystem locked down. I was eventually able to get around the filesystem being locked down and when I did, to my disappointment I was only able to get download speeds of about 8-9KB/s. :(

I love the Reliance WebWorld concept and the fact that they are all over the place here in Delhi. These shops will prove to be very valuable to Reliance as it sells more and more consumer services. But they have a lot of work to do on the user experience.