MgCarley,
What do you think is the reason that Indian broadband players are not ready to give the proper bandwidth to customers? If you compare it with other countries, then India is still far behind.
I honestly can't think of a good reason. As you can see from Bharti's pricing model in particular, apparently it's more expensive for them to deliver fixed amounts of data (eg 20GB) at 4mbit/s than at 2mbit/s. In practice, I don't think this is the truth - if it were, citizens of Europe would be paying far more than they do!
Anyway, I would say that probably the only ISP that may have difficulty in delivering high-speed access to most of it's network would be BSNL, the main reason for that being plain vastness - and in some areas I suspect wiring which hasn't been touched in decades.
However, I think that most of Bharti's last-mile wiring is capable of at least 10-12mbit/s (worst case), so I don't think that they would have issues in delivering all data-plans at up to 8mbit/s, although 5-6mbit/s is a more realistic figure (unless they run fiber to the building and then have a small DSLAM in your building's basement, in which case you might get 16+ because surely they'd install
ADSL2+ equipment these days).
I don't think *I* personally would have a problem with the plans if they simply made more sense and called them what they are: "flat-rate" as in pricing or "unlimited" as in usage. Choose one. You can't call a plan with an 8 or 20 or 40GB fair usage policy as "unlimited" because it just isn't - it should be called "flat-rate", otherwise if they wish to say "unlimited", then it must be "256k unlimited, with SPEED BOOSTER for the first 8/20/40GB".
I don't mind if they continue to have unlimited pricing plans (say 256, 512, 1mbit, 2mbit, 4mbit) so long as they are unlimited as in usage, but if they're going to give me either data of 20GB per month or an Fair Usage Policy of the same, don't give me an option to pay Rs1300 for 2mbit/s or Rs1400 for 4mbit/s - for pete's sake, give me ONE option to pay Rs1400 and deliver it without a speed-cap (at least until the Fair Usage Policy kicks in)!
You know what the difference between a 2mbit/s line and a 4mbit/s line is? It's the number that the engineer types in to the routing equipment to rate-limit your line. That's pretty much it.
reliance owns flag telecom.
tata too owns a similar giant...
there is no shortage of bandwidth.
Tata/VSNL owns what used to be Tyco but most of those assets are in the Atlantic ocean. As far as Indian bandwidth is concerned, Bharti takes the cake in total number of cables and capacity by a long mile - 5 (Bharti) to 3 (Tata/VSNL) to 1 (Reliance).
And while we're at it, Bharti, stop overcharging for your services! Rs1300 for 20GB is way over the top. Obviously you can get me 5GB (fixed) at 2mbit/s for Rs799. Of course, even this is overcharging - surely their costs are not nearly as much as mine are. Anyway, let's continue.
There's a plan with a 15GB Fair Usage Policy for Rs1099.
Assuming that as a base, let's look at the next level, 5GB data for the smallest impatience plans is ~Rs100, so 25GB should cost Rs1299 (not 1399). Rs1399 should buy at least 30GB (not 25). A small difference, but it's there.
Worse still, for the high-end impatience plans, a difference of 10GB costs Rs100. Therefore, a 25GB plan should actually cost Rs1199 (not 1399), and for Rs1799, users should actually get a whopping 85GB (not 50).
It's even worse if you take the 799/5gbyte plan as a base, but it's not comparable because it's not unlimited transfer even at 256k.
And while we're still at it, Bharti, whatever happened to your 16mbit, 30mbit and 50mbit offerings?? Although the plans still seem to exist in some markets, they seem to have completely disappeared off the advertising radar with all this "4mbit/s Impatience" and "FREE speed doubling" BS. Must be too expensive.
And if you look at it, 85GB*2.5=212GB for a cost of Rs4498, whereas they are charging 7999 (30mbit/s) or 8999 (50mbit/s) for 200GB - again, WHY???? It's stupid to have an Rs1000 price difference for exactly the same amount of data. And they are charging 2999 for 50GB @ 8mbits and 4999 for 100GB at 16mbit/s. At these rates, users on these plans are paying nearly twice the price per GB than those on the 1699 and 1799 impatience plans (in fact, 1799 impatience and the 2999 velocity customers are getting basically the same product, same amount of data for 1200 difference).
Confusion, it seems, is very profitable, and I think I have just come up with the reason as to why they aren't willing to provide better services. Why bother with that when you can just confuse everybody?
---------- Post added at 08:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:04 AM ----------
I should get some java wizard to create a calculator which will calculate the best value plan going by price, speed and Fair Usage Policy - in other words, cheapest price per GB.
EG if you left your PC on 24/7, you could get 50GB in about 1 day, 5 hours at 4mbits. With the remaining hours, you could get another 74GB. Total monthly: 124GB. At 1799, this means your average price per GB would be Rs14.50.
Or, if you left your PC on 24/7, you could get 2GB in about 1 day at 2mbits. With the remaining hours, you could get another 74.5GB. Total monthly: 94.5GB. At 1299, this means your average price per GB would be Rs13.75.
