Hayai Broadband Lite

[mgcarley]

but BT is not the only way users can consume too much data on your network!

When it comes to sustained transfers it's the most significant way (and the most obvious). What else do you think people could do to saturate the connections?

Watching TV online is pretty much the only thing I can think of, but the bandwidth consumption on most sites is nowhere near enough for us to be particularly concerned.

 

[Sushubh]

you would be going against the principles of network neutrality if you provide a connection with BT disabled

 

[mgcarley]

you would be going against the principles of network neutrality if you provide a connection with BT disabled

Not really. We would not be restricting access to any network in particular, just a particular protocol. All routes would be treated as equal. If we favoured one route over another, then we would be going against net neutrality.

For those that want to do large amounts of P2P sharing on a ye-olde el-cheapo (aka Lite connection - if we implement them), there is always the Hayai Zone, which would be subject to zero interferance whatsoever, and would be way faster in any case.

 

[KurianOfBorg]

Currently I get 2Mbps with speed reduction to 1Mbps after 100GB Fair Usage Policy for Rs.1799 from Airtel. But for some ridiculous reason 4Mbps with reduction to 256kbps only has a 50GB Fair Usage Policy for the same price. Your Lite prices are quite reasonable in comparison. I would be one of those people who'd rather wait for the next billing cycle for my speed to go back to 100Mbps instead of buying more data in the same month. I'd just live with the 256kbps till then. However there should also be the option of buying more data for the current billing cycle.

However I think you may have the wrong kind of audience in mind. Anyone paying 1.5-2k per month for internet for a couple of Mbps is usually a "cheap" downloader. Any form of throttling is a big no-no.

 

[wolvi]

the question is how would one exhaust 100 GB if BT is not involved....so how wise would it be to have a 100 GB or even 50 GB 'lite plan'

 

[mgcarley]

To be honest, I think I may be asking the wrong people about these particular plans. Perhaps I should go to uncles and aunties and explain to them in lay-mans terms what the connection provides, how much faster it is, how much cheaper it is (direct comparison) and then at the end say "but it provides no access to things like bittorrent - will that be ok?"I'd say a fairly decent percentage would say "what the hell is bittorrent?"

 

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[KurianOfBorg]

To be honest, I think I may be asking the wrong people about these particular plans. Perhaps I should go to uncles and aunties and explain to them in lay-mans terms what the connection provides, how much faster it is, how much cheaper it is (direct comparison) and then at the end say "but it provides no access to things like bittorrent - will that be ok?"

I'd say a fairly decent percentage would say "what the hell is bittorrent?"
They are definitely not going to pay 1k+. I don't think you need to worry about them losing connectivity after exhausting a data plan. The cheapest data plan is frankly much more attractive than these.

My suggestion is, scrap this altogether and adjust the pricing of the data plans such that you can still provide reduced speed. Maybe not have them buy data at all and give them just 256Kbps for 551+whatever. Buy data and get it at 100Mbps.

 

[mgcarley]

Currently I get 2Mbps with speed reduction to 1Mbps after 100GB Fair Usage Policy for Rs.1799 from Airtel. But for some ridiculous reason 4Mbps with reduction to 256kbps only has a 50GB Fair Usage Policy for the same price. Your Lite prices are quite reasonable in comparison. I would be one of those people who'd rather wait for the next billing cycle for my speed to go back to 100Mbps instead of buying more data in the same month. I'd just live with the 256kbps till then.


I don't really get how Airtel comes up with their pricing either. Sometimes I think they throw darts at the wall and just price the plans according to where each dart lands

However there should also be the option of buying more data for the current billing cycle.


I think that could be arranged.

However I think you may have the wrong kind of audience in mind. Anyone paying 1.5-2k per month for internet for a couple of Mbps is usually a "cheap" downloader. Any form of throttling is a big no-no.

These plans would be Sub-1k, I imagine.

the question is how would one exhaust 100 GB if BT is not involved....so how wise would it be to have a 100 GB or even 50 GB 'lite plan'

Exactly. I'd say 30GB would probably be the upper limit on these types of plans.

---------- Post added at 11:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 PM ----------

They are definitely not going to pay 1k+. I don't think you need to worry about them losing connectivity after exhausting a data plan. The cheapest data plan is frankly much more attractive than these.

How do you come to that conclusion?

 

[KurianOfBorg]

Edited my previous post, guess you missed it since you already replied.

---------- Post added at 11:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 PM ----------

How do you come to that conclusion?

Thats a LOT of money for someone who doesn't care much about their PC. My dad refuses to pay Rs.100 more to get a speed bump from 384kbps to 1Mbps. Aunties and uncles are cheap..very very cheap.

 

[mgcarley]

My suggestion is, scrap this altogether and adjust the pricing of the data plans such that you can still provide reduced speed. Maybe not have them buy data at all and give them just 256Kbps for 551+whatever. Buy data and get it at 100Mbps.

Therein lies a problem: providing 256kbit/s as a baseline would defeat the purpose.

256kbit/s access should be a last resort only, and I'd rather that our users never have to suffer with such speeds. That's why I would aim these kind of 500-1000 flat-rate plans at... well to put it one way... your parents.

The speed is there. Chances are they don't bittorrent, but maybe they'd like to Youtube, Skype Video, perhaps a little last.fm if they're particularly advanced. If I may pigeonhole them for a moment, generally I'd hazard to say that they are not going to use it like us young folks do.

But the current plans whereby you get like 500MB of usage or 2.5GB of usage (in the case of my FiL) are just slightly less than enough for them, even though they're just Facebooking and whatnot, the FUPs should be sufficient that most of these users wouldn't hit them, even if they hit MTNLs 2.5GB limit regularly.

Granted, yes, the plans would look similar to Airtel's 2Mbit/30GB FUP plan at Rs1999 (Mumbai circle) but these are twice as expensive as what I'm proposing - even if their speed is more after the FUP is hit, they consider this one of their higher-level plans, clearly aimed at us "downloaders", whereas we're considering it more of a lower-level plan, targeting a very different audience, essentially with the same product at a cheaper price.