Airtel violates net neutrality again with its broadband TV

[mehrotra.akash]

Of course Net Neutrality works both ways, but I'm interested to know how will Hayai destroy the Internet? Please, do tell.



The 100mbps speeds will make the pipes very heavy and under pressure they will explode

 

[mgcarley]

The 100mbps speeds will make the pipes very heavy and under pressure they will explode

You mean 1,000mbit/s.

And if the pipes explode, well... everyone likes fireworks and pretty lights - we can say it's an early Diwali

For the most part, we sell data. We don't care where it goes once it's off our network - it's still charged at the same rate. We couldn't possibly get any more neutral than that, and if Warthog begs to differ, I'd like to see how.

If we did like Rs1/GB for Facebook and Yahoo, Rs2/GB for MSN and Youtube, Rs5 for Vimeo... THAT would be bad for Network Neutrality, but that's not what we're doing, and in this case, nor is Airtel.

As for the CGA, there is no clause which prevents an ISP from restricting access on certain protocols: the act states in a nutshell that the product must perform as promised. The only speed guarantee that is given to anyone by an ISP is that it is going to be more than 256kbit/s to the ISP node. That's it. And they deliver on that promise - any DPI/throttling is done at the network's border and as such the CGA does not apply because the ISP is not guaranteeing you a given speed from your home to say, the USA.

And if you were buying an MPLS at however many lakhs/crores per year you get it for, the CGA again wouldn't apply because you wouldn't be a consumer - but their SLA would state that the speed has to be such and such from one point to another (for example, Mumbai to San Jose USA) - of course, after it leaves (for example Equinix at San Jose), it's anyones guess what speeds you'd get within the continental US or to London or where ever the traffic was eventually destined for... and then the CGA would apply even less because it would be AT&T/HE/Genuity/Verizon/NTT/Reach/PCH/Tata/etc/etc/etc transporting the data and in this case, you'd be contending with all the other data flowing out of that data center, and they wouldn't be liable because they would not have signed a contract with you.

@Warthog If you really want to file a lawsuit against Airtel, maybe you should give it a go - I'd support you if you had a solid case.

 

[mehrotra.akash]

^^My statement was meant as a joke

 

[mgcarley]

^^My statement was meant as a joke

I understand, that's why I said about it being an early Diwali

 

[sanke1]

Guys chill.Matt, don't bother with these kiddies. There are people who still have faith in you.Sushubh plz lock this thread. Too much of flaming.

 

[mgcarley]

Guys chill.

Matt, don't bother with these kiddies. There are people who still have faith in you.


Heh. It's not me he's angry at (I don't think), it's Airtel - I just can't figure out why or what for. Some people just need to "have a bitch" now and then - including myself

 

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[warthog]

mgcarly the problem is that i am on a 512k plan.If i had a 2,4mbps plan and my speed were throttled,i would go gung ho on airtel.There are soo many users @ 4mbps plans who have as you said just bitchin and not filed a suit.Maybe in the comming months i would take a 4mbps plan for 1 month but the problem is that i am on a retention plan where i get 512k for 10gb with call rate 1p per second and 1.2p for std @ rs649 and i am afraid i wont be allowed to revert to this plan.Only admin can do something but he is busy selling his privacy by clicking pics from his google nexus phone where each pic has a gps coordinate.also consumer protection act trumps airtel TOS.They dont even have a TOS in thier site.

 

[mgcarley]

mgcarly the problem is that i am on a 512k plan.If i had a 2,4mbps plan and my speed were throttled,i would go gung ho on airtel.There are soo many users @ 4mbps plans who have as you said just bitchin and not filed a suit.Maybe in the comming months i would take a 4mbps plan for 1 month but the problem is that i am on a retention plan where i get 512k for 10gb with call rate 1p per second and 1.2p for std @ rs649 and i am afraid i wont be allowed to revert to this plan.

Only admin can do something but he is busy selling his privacy by clicking pics from his google nexus phone where each pic has a gps coordinate.

also consumer protection act trumps airtel TOS.They dont even have a TOS in thier site.

They do somewhere - I had a read of it not long ago. You also signed some paperwork when you took their connection. And CGA does not supercede contract law - it states that in the first few paragraphs of the act.

But you're missing the point - if you were on a 2 or 4 mbit/s plan, you would still have no warrant to gripe about P2P being slow, because they are not throttling your connection speed between your residence and the ISP node, which is what they are offering. As I said, they are offering you a speed up to the ISP node, not to the Internet.

Unfortunately for the consumer, these are very different things. In reality, the maximum Airtel can promise you (assuming their contention ratio is still 1:17) is around 60 kilobits to the real Internet for every megabit they sell you - as you well know, they rely on people NOT saturating the pipes in order to deliver near the promised speeds, but assuming Airtel has about 1 million customers and 100gbit/s of network traffic to the rest of the Internet (actual numbers are up to double of either of those figures, according to my sources), if everyone were using the pipes at the same time everyone would get speeds of barely 100kbits per second - but of course, I'm also not counting all the GPRS/3G users and corporate/leased users... it's a hell of a balancing act.