In terms of unlimited plans what can we expect in terms of price decreases and new plans in the next 2 years? Right Tata Indicom has a 256Kbps UL plan for around 1000 pm. If I am not mistaken there isn't any major ISP which provides a significantly lower rate for a similar plan. TI also has 512UL for around 2000. Personally I am expecting the 512UL to drop to around 1600 within 6-8 months. I don't know if this is low enough for me. I think we will have to wait for more than a year for 512UL to fall to around 1200 which is when I would surely jump in. Am I being too pessimistic? Could we see 512UL for around 1000 this year from a major ISP? Needless to say all this is pathetic by international standards but there you are. Realistically what can we expect?
Realistically what can we expect in the next few years?
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Prices typically drop in 3 scenarios 1) When demand and number of users increase and therefore ISPs are able to recover in terms of volumes rather than value. Currently broadband is a very niche category and therefore average revenue to be recovered per user is much higher. 2) When one company undercuts the others and starts a price war in the category by offering such low rates that others have to follow suit to survive.3) When the bar in terms of product gets raised (eg. if 1 mbps UL becomes a norm, then automatically price of lower end plans will fall. Just as in digicams, with 7 and 8 MP becoming the norm, 5MP is now very affordable)Point 1 will drive broadband prices down in the long run but I'm not sure it will happen in the next 1 year. Currently Internet usage is growing hugely but Home PC purchase is not growing as rapidly. Point 2 - well it ought to have happened already if it was going to! I don't see any company trying to cut rates to grow the market. Not even guys like Reliance who normally do it in every market. Tata BB offers reasonable rates, but product delivery and service are bad. Point 3 - this is where I pin my hopes if at all. But realistically will it bring 512 kpbs within the magic Rs.1000 figure in 1 year? I think it might take closer to 2 years. And I hope I'm wrong and it does happen in a year 
Nice post meaculpa.Perhaps the government as well as public sector providers have a role in the Indian context. It would be nice if MTNL started providing aggressively priced unlimited plans instead of the "night unlimited" nonsense. I also wonder if a redefinition of broadband might be relevant to your third point. The current 256 is rather ridiculous and should be increased to at least 512. There is a qualitative difference between 256 and 512; for instance the latter is the lowest speed where you can watch typical video clips roughly in real time.Perhaps if broadband was redefined to 512 we might see cheaper 512 UL plans.
We can have unlimited 1 mbps for ~1000 if:1. If TATA starts providing its own wiring (and thus a stable connection) 2. You have 3 broadband users in close vicinity At present TATA Indicom has 1 mbps for ~3000 per month. If three users share this line, all of them get 1 mbps [if they agree on avoiding downloads in evening / morning], since no one is going to use all of 1 mbps every second. With Wi-Fi, sharing a connection shd be quite straightforward.Forgot to add, at least in my case its difficult to find "3" broadband users in a single building.
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