Times of India on Fair Usage Policy

[mgcarley]

This article could be the result after the ISP connecting TOI's office leased line internet with FUP. Only then they show light on these issues. :notallowed:

@MgCarley: I agree your point... in that case for a 2mbps u/l it must be aroung 250-350 GB limit.

I have four friends who have MTNL connections.

All four in different areas of the city.

One of them is okay with once a week downtime.But others suffer disconnections for days on end.Literally.I dont have any agenda against MTNL so I dont have a reason to lie either.Customer support is mostly unreachable and when they are they are usually no help.
I had the conenction four years ago and was disconnected for two weeks without help despite contacting CC multiple times.Gave up and shifted to Airtel.
They may be cheats and I despise them for many reasons.But service quality is at a whole different level compared to MTNL.
It IS the case of MTNL working well in some areas and pretty poor in most of the others.
Atleast three other friends of mine have shifted from MTNL in the past two years.

Reliable?Hardly.

Proving my point yet again. Thanks for your input MTNL on the whole may be sufficiently good in some areas, so, maybe instead of using the world "unreliable" to describe MTNL's service, maybe we need to say "inconsistant".

Good article. I'm glad to see that finally the press has highlighted the issue. I see Airtel is mentioned only once. Airtel sucks should be mentioned 100 times. They are the ones who have introduced this FUP shit in India. Other players followed Airtel. I'm OK with any FUP - but the FUP limit has to be FAIR - it's totally unfair in Airtel's case.

Couple of month's ago, I had written a big fat email to Airtel's corporate office. I got a call from their Pune office. Some lady explained me why they have introduced this FUP shit and what it means to the consumer. I heard everything she had to say and in the end I just asked her one final question: Why is Airtel's FUP unfair? I mean we are talking about 15GB and 25GB FUPs not 100GB or 200GB. She didn't have an answer to this question. So, the conclusion is they won't give a **** unless their profits start dropping substantially.

The bad news: I'm on a 20GB FUP plan. The good news: FUP is applicable only during day-time and not during night-time. I say many old Airtel broadband subscribers (like me) are still getting a much better deal than new Airtel broadband subscribers who are stuck with a 15GB-25GB FUP limit. That's all I have to say.

@Admin: Try emailing to various newspapers and see if anyone else is interested in publishing this kinda article.

---------- Post added at 02:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:28 PM ----------

Twitter / Chaitanya Purandare: FUP limits are totally unf ...

Obviously not as much of a highlight as is really needed. I understand that they only have limited space, but so much information was left out (including even any remote suggestion of what needs to be done and who to complain to, information/suggestions which I do distinctly remember providing, and have also left as a comment on the online version of the article which has yet to be moderated).

looks like this article was published only in the New Delhi TOI edition,nothing mentioned in the Bangalore edition.

You can see said article online at Caught in the Net of slow broadband - The Times of India

 

[Sushubh]

well i checked the article while i was in delhi at my nana's place. i was explaining to him about what FUP is and how airtel has messed it up. he pretty much started defended airtel on his own stating that MTNL had literally made his life a nightmare when he was using their connection. mtnl surely has some good guys who are probably doing a great job. but if you expect me to compare them to airtel in terms of customer service? no sir, they are NO WHERE near airtel. there are plenty of users on this forum that can say great things about airtel broadband. the ratio of happy customers wrt service on airtel is going to be far greater than on mtnl.

---------- Post added at 04:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:52 PM ----------

and i would also like to clarify here that the statement about mtnl was not mine. i am not sure if it was MGs. i think it was of the guy they talked about first in the article.

my entire focus was on airtel which the reporter totally ignored (airtel is of course a heavy advertiser in TOI). the last line of the article is pretty cool though. i think i had written that one.

references to tata broadband were not mine at all. probably MG. they totally ignored all the good technical stuff MG had stated. did not mention anything about hayai. it's a pretty disappointing article in the end.

 

[Rock21]

Well, For me MTNL is the best option.It's always because of MTNL that speeds are upgraded.If there had been no MTNL we might have been stuck at 256 kbps (unlimited) broadband.The private firms are just interested in maximizing here profits. They do an upgrade only when they face competition from MTNL.Last time I faced downtime was back in March for 2-3 days but that's Okey since it was almost after 2 years !Infact, The customer care even called me to ask whether the net is working fine or not and gave in their sincere effort to fix it. Never had any bad experience with customer care.Last but not the least, MTNL is the only broadband which is full of surprises.Giving 2mbps on 512 kbps plan is a thing that can only be done by MTNL !! Sidenote: Pakistan is getting 4 mbps unlimited for Rs 1999!!! What the hell ?!

 

[mgcarley]

well i checked the article while i was in delhi at my nana's place. i was explaining to him about what FUP is and how airtel has messed it up. he pretty much started defended airtel on his own stating that MTNL had literally made his life a nightmare when he was using their connection. mtnl surely has some good guys who are probably doing a great job. but if you expect me to compare them to airtel in terms of customer service? no sir, they are NO WHERE near airtel. there are plenty of users on this forum that can say great things about airtel broadband. the ratio of happy customers wrt service on airtel is going to be far greater than on mtnl.

---------- Post added at 04:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:52 PM ----------

and i would also like to clarify here that the statement about mtnl was not mine. i am not sure if it was MGs. i think it was of the guy they talked about first in the article.

my entire focus was on airtel which the reporter totally ignored (airtel is of course a heavy advertiser in TOI). the last line of the article is pretty cool though. i think i had written that one.

references to tata broadband were not mine at all. probably MG. they totally ignored all the good technical stuff MG had stated. did not mention anything about hayai. it's a pretty disappointing article in the end.

I didn't say anything about MTNL or Tata - the only information I gave to that guy is in the document that we collaborated on. There was another person "Mukesh Maurya" who was apparently sourced for information too - I think the author got you/us and him and our respective statements a bit mixed up.

 

[Sushubh]

well yeah. we provided him with an integrated piece. so he had no way to find out what part was yours and what was mine.

 

[mgcarley]

Sidenote: Pakistan is getting 4 mbps unlimited for Rs 1999!!! What the hell ?!

This is old news. In fact I've been mentioning it since I joined this forum last year. Sad fact is, all of India's neighbours, excepting probably Tibet and Bhutan (who basically don't have Internet at all), have better internet & pricing than is available in India... Case in point: Sri Lanka Telecom (who obviously buy their bandwidth from Tata and Bharti since the main cable in & out of that country is SMW4), yet, 1mbit/s unlimited: Rs1200. 2mbit/s unlimited: Rs2300...

---------- Post added at 05:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:22 PM ----------

well yeah. we provided him with an integrated piece. so he had no way to find out what part was yours and what was mine.

Yeah, but he confused our combined stuff with this Mukesh fellow.

 

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[ranjittech]

MTNL here again the victim of Yellow Journalism. For me and many of my friends MTNL is providing superb service. Negligible downtime, best tariff, no FUP, no billing hassels.

"Even so, users say MTNL's services are too unreliable to be a viable option even though they don't have the FUP condition."


I am sure, above line is purely based on writers imagination. Can he put forth which USERS he interviewed.

BTW, here is online link of article
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/Caught-in-the-Net-of-slow-broadband/articleshow/6538767.cms

 

[Sushubh]

well you are again taking only some points of views. i know plenty of users myself who had hellish time with MTNL but are happy with airtel.

you do have to realize that with airtel majority of reviews if not all are positive in nature when it comes to quality of support. of course, it's not perfect.

i guess we might have to start a thread targeting MTNL users asking for their feedback.

do not take it personally, he probably got that feedback from the first guy mentioned in the article who is on airtel but is not willing to switch to mtnl.

i would be probably in the same position if i were in his place... no matter how much amish and you guys talk good about mtnl... i am not confident enough to migrate to them.

there are a couple of guys here who are on the verge of shifting to mtnl from airtel. it would be interesting to see their experiences as well.

---------- Post added at 06:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:36 PM ----------

I can point to three cases rightaway. All from delhi.

My nana is happy with Airtel landline because MTNL stayed down for days during monsoons. In fact, two of his old MTNL lines are down at this moment!

My fufa ji moved from MTNL to Airtel. He is pretty pleased with the quality of internet connectivity on airtel which was very erratic on MTNL (though he migrated last year... things might have improved in the recent past).

My brother in law is stuck on MTNL because airtel is not available in the congested areas of Shahdara. he wants to migrate to anything that is available because MTNL is very erratic for him. sadly, there are no other options.

---------- Post added at 06:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:42 PM ----------

Started a thread for folks who migrated from Airtel to MTNL and are willing to post their experiences! https://broadband.forum/mtnl-broadband/62085-switched-airtel-broadband-mtnl-broadband/

 

[ranjittech]

Ok, for some/many MTNL is not good, and for some Airtel in its RELIABILITY(as perceived from TOI article) perspective. But one can guess reliability is definitely not below satisfaction. Moreover,this thread is all about evil FUP which is ruining Broadband experience. And perhaps MTNL is only ISP not forcing FUP. So at least MTNL is most generous and pro-consumer in this aspect('tariff' is another one). Why not use this point to attack on other ISP for their FUP policy. I wish all the best to all Stalwarts who are waging war against FUP(esp. Sushubh).But somewhere I believe, one day, so called infamous MTNL will break the barrier and come out with 2mbps minimum speed, no FUP. And this will smash the devil cartel of Private ISPs.

 

[iitmanojit]

I don't like Fair Usage Ploicy. But I am supporting it. Look it is not bad to have 500GB data transfer cap per month for upto 1MBps or 2MBps home user. Fair Usage Policy should only be implemented for dividing consumer types. We should also need an extended short time boost plan for bandwidth. Such as top up type. Again a point.. We want good infrastructure. Without a good service FUP is really bullshit.And to ISP..."Dont use the term Unlimited".. Use the "Free upto X GB"... Be good Google type, don't be Microsoft type.