Hello,
Reliance and Tata Indicom have now come out with USB modems that provide broadband speeds theoretically upto 3.1 Mbps in major cities with National low speed roaming in other areas. A client of mine told me that his friend uses a Reliance one and clocked upto 1.5 Mbps on it. Reliance promo emails mention peak hour speeds between 512K and 1Mbps. Tata also provides a wireless router that talks wirelessly to the tower and provides a wired+wireless LAN for the office. MTNL and BSNL broadband are getting competition. Great! Now use your note/netbooks for video conferencing on the move. No more linesman telling you that your modem or wiring is bad.
Is this the 3G thing by the back door before the licenses are issued or something in between, before 3G makes a big bang? Will 3G bring in something even newer?
Hi,
On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 12:39 AM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
Reliance and Tata Indicom have now come out with USB modems that provide broadband speeds theoretically upto 3.1 Mbps in major cities with National low speed roaming in other areas. A client of mine told me that his friend uses a Reliance one and clocked upto 1.5 Mbps on it.
Do you have links to these plans? Thanks in advance.
Cheers!
Pradeepto
Reliance and Tata Indicom have now come out with USB modems that provide broadband speeds theoretically upto 3.1 Mbps in major cities with National low speed roaming in other areas. A client of mine told me that his friend uses a Reliance one and clocked upto 1.5 Mbps on it.
Do you have links to these plans? Thanks in advance.
I am thinking of subscribing to one of these plans: http://www.rcom.co.in/Communications/rcom/RNetconnect/netconnect_broadband_t...
The reliance guy had called up and asked if I would like to see a demo before purchase. I was surprized to hear such words from a Reliance customer care. The last time I had a reliance connection was 4 years back and their customer care was pathetic that time.
it seems to be good option but really expensive compared to people who would go on downloading there mails as i think 10gb fair usage policy cap is just not good it should be more than 25 gb per month
Information Security wrote:
it seems to be good option but really expensive compared to people who would go on downloading there mails as i think 10gb fair usage policy cap is just not good it should be more than 25 gb per month
250 - 500GB cap seems to be fair. Not 25 or 10GB. ( per month )
- Dinesh
On Sunday 29 March 2009, Information Security wrote:
it seems to be good option but really expensive compared to people who would go on downloading there mails as i think 10gb fair usage policy cap is just not good it should be more than 25 gb per month
Look at the coverage maps before buying. Besides the stupid fair use crap, national coverage outside small pockets of 35 cities is thru the 175Kbps (actually 30Kbps) cdma link.
Do these work well with Linuxes?
Anshul
On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 10:25 AM, jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:
On Sunday 29 March 2009, Information Security wrote:
it seems to be good option but really expensive compared to people who would go on downloading there mails as i think 10gb fair usage policy cap is just not good it should be more than 25 gb per month
Look at the coverage maps before buying. Besides the stupid fair use crap, national coverage outside small pockets of 35 cities is thru the 175Kbps (actually 30Kbps) cdma link.
-- Rgds JTD -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
On Sunday 29 March 2009, Anshul Khandelwal wrote:
Do these work well with Linuxes?
Tata Indicom cdma modems work "well" @ 30kbps with an occasional burst of 175kbps. It works in most places in India and is an order of magnitude more reliable and faster than gprs. On periphery of small towns it slows down to 3~4 kbps. Still good enough for ssh.
Information Security wrote:
it seems to be good option but really expensive compared to people who would go on downloading there mails as i think 10gb fair usage policy cap is just not good it should be more than 25 gb per month
The main issue I feel is that the technology is now available to us for mobile broadband, at least in some major cities.
On Sunday 29 March 2009 10:14:28 Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Information Security wrote:
it seems to be good option but really expensive compared to people who would go on downloading there mails as i think 10gb fair usage policy cap is just not good it should be more than 25 gb per month
250 - 500GB cap seems to be fair. Not 25 or 10GB. ( per month )
wow DJ saying a cap is fair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On Sunday 29 March 2009 10:51:53 Anshul Khandelwal wrote:
Do these work well with Linuxes?
wots dat?
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
wow DJ saying a cap is fair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes and please look at the numbers? Its virtually unlimited unless you're doing some heavyweight downloading. I forgot to mention, the cap that I'm thinking of is only *downstream*. Not upstream. On a 1-2Mbps connection 500GB is very difficult to reach.
- Dinesh
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
wow DJ saying a cap is fair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes and please look at the numbers? Its virtually unlimited unless you're doing some heavyweight downloading. I forgot to mention, the cap that I'm thinking of is only *downstream*. Not upstream. On a 1-2Mbps connection 500GB is very difficult to reach.
Assuming a utopia average speed of 1 Mbps, if one continuously downloads data for one month, it will be:-
125 KBytes per second * 3600 * 24 * 30 = 324 GB. We will need bigger hard disks just to store the download. What about electricity bills? :-) If this download is a streaming DVD quality video for television with stereo audio, what are the total hours of videos that will pass through in one month?
Rony wrote:
Assuming a utopia average speed of 1 Mbps, if one continuously downloads data for one month, it will be:-
125 KBytes per second * 3600 * 24 * 30 = 324 GB. We will need bigger hard disks just to store the download. What about electricity bills? :-) If this download is a streaming DVD quality video for television with stereo audio, what are the total hours of videos that will pass through in one month?
What utopia are you talking about? Theres no such thing in India. I'm on Comcast 8Mbps. They have a so called "fair usage" policy. This is not strictly enforced because of several reasons. Technically we have 250GB soft cap. If we cross that, then we'll be "throttled". But thats only for repeat offenders. I think this is what India should also adopt. Airtel / other ISPs dont get the idea. MTNL until recently gave a paltry 200MB / 1GB limits on their 2Mbps connections which is complete BS. 50-100GB soft cap on a 2Mbps connection for Rs.500 is a good plan.
The thing with western countries is that they have plenty and few to serve. India on the other hand is the opposite. Whatever "plenty" the ISPs create will be lapped up. Heh...
Also, downloading doesnt necessarily mean storing on harddrive.
- Dinesh
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Information Security wrote:
it seems to be good option but really expensive compared to people who would go on downloading there mails as i think 10gb fair usage policy cap is just not good it should be more than 25 gb per month
250 - 500GB cap seems to be fair. Not 25 or 10GB. ( per month )
- Dinesh
Actually, I find it funny that you guys are ok with a "fair use cap" which in effect makes it a 10gb data limit connection while being called an unlimited connection. What it amounts to is false advertising. MTNL is much better, it does not call it an unlimited plan but says its a limited data plan.
Regards saswata
On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 9:44 PM, scrapo scrapo@saswatabanerjee.com wrote:
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Information Security wrote:
it seems to be good option but really expensive compared to people who would go on downloading there mails as i think 10gb fair usage policy cap is just not good it should be more than 25 gb per month
250 - 500GB cap seems to be fair. Not 25 or 10GB. ( per month )
- Dinesh
Actually, I find it funny that you guys are ok with a "fair use cap" which in effect makes it a 10gb data limit connection while being called an unlimited connection. What it amounts to is false advertising. MTNL is much better, it does not call it an unlimited plan but says its a limited data plan.
On the same front, i have consulted a lawyer, and according to him, it amounts to unfair trade practice, via false advertising. they can be take up in the consumer court and will have their knuckles rapped.
Now the question is, who is the brave soul who can take both tata and reliance into court and survive.....
Regards saswata -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
which in effect makes it a 10gb data limit connection while being called
an unlimited connection. What it amounts to is false advertising. MTNL is much better, it does not call it an unlimited plan but says its a limited data plan.
Let's spread this by all our means "Reliance is doing false marketing". Someone might here this.
-- Regards Pankaj
I am highly interested to "take them up in the consumer court". Anyone else who would like to support me.
scrapo wrote:
Actually, I find it funny that you guys are ok with a "fair use cap" which in effect makes it a 10gb data limit connection while being called an unlimited connection. What it amounts to is false advertising. MTNL is much better, it does not call it an unlimited plan but says its a limited data plan.
I'm absolutely not rooting here for the thugs of the telecom industry. All I'm saying is if you give me a "limit" which exceeds my download capability, then in effect I have an "unlimited" connection - atleast I wont feel any difference. For example, if I have a 1Mbps connection, theoretically I can download ~327GB / month. If an ISP offers me the same connection with a, say, 500GB cap thats as good as being unlimited because I *cant* exceed the cap.
Secondly, as I mentioned, in the US or western countries the word "cap" is used very liberally. It is *rarely* enforced. Unlike Indian ISPs which will shut you off if you exceed the limit. What MTNL and other ISPs have done is, they've conned the Indian consumer. 200MB / month is a freakin' joke.
But what have you lawyers done about it? The TRAI rarely has, if any, support from the white collared public. All that "geeks" of our nation can do is sit at their 1337 machines and sign online petitions. They cant go into Airtel's office smash some heads and show them that we mean business. We're not to be taken for a ride. I'm not an extremists but the horror stories I've come to know over the years, I for one believe that strong action is essential.
Also, I can understand that India has limited interconnect with the rest of the world. Indian ISPs are charged a lot but isn't it true that Indian ISPs ( TATA and Reliance ) now own some of the largest backbones out there? Last time I checked Reliance had some 10,000 terabits of unlit fiberoptic capacity ( Was it the Flag telecom deal? Dont remember exactly ).
Has anybody considered going and trashing some offices and punch the A** H***s whole make plans to milk the Indian consumer? Hmm...
Saswata, how many cases have you registered against any ISP for their unfair data limits? poor customer service? Horrible uptime?
Oh and the best line of them all comes from an MTNL customer care rep:
Me: So do you have any "unlimited" plans?
Rep: Yes, all our plans are unlimited.
Me: ( rolls eyes ) No. All your plans are limited upto a certain amount of data transfer like 1GB, 200MB etc...
Rep: Yeah, so?
Me: ( Gets frustrated ) They're not *unlimited*. I want an *unlimited* plan.
Rep: Umm...your plan is already unlimited.
Me: Come on lady!! The plan restricts me to a set data transfer amount!
Rep: No! You can download as much as you want to. You just have to pay for the extra transfer!
Me: x_x
( This was at a time when MTNL had introduced unlimited plans in Delhi and not in Mumbai ).
I corrected my terminology - I call them Flat rate plans :P
- Dinesh
On Monday 30 Mar 2009, Information Security wrote:
I am highly interested to "take them up in the consumer court". Anyone else who would like to support me.
...and you are?
-- Raju
Pankaj Jangid wrote:
I just tweeted this http://twitter.com/jangid/status/1418661430.
spread it.
Geez...grow up man. You post to a mailing list about your tweet? :P
Anyway, theres nothing false about Reliance's advertising. The plan *is* unlimited. Its just that you have to pay beyond a certain usage. They're not going to cut you off. They will simply charge you for the extra usage. ( Check out my other reply to Saswata. It should make this clear ).
They distinguish between a "Flat Rate" plan and "Unlimited plan". It also depends on what definition they use. Their definition of unlimited isn't misleading or wrong. Also, they have clearly marked it and specified it in the fine print so its a losing case for the consumer.
Lastly, theres a difference between - Unlimited, Unmetered, Flat fee / rate plan.
What you can pull them up for is putting *any* limits at all. As I see it they are creating an artificial scarcity of resources. We can show the court how much international bandwidth these people have and how much the country's infrastructure supports. They're hoarding it and selling it and at an artificially high price. If we convince the courts that theres plenty for everybody and yet they're showing as if theres scarcity we can not only get higher speeds, unmetered bandwidth but maybe get the ISPs to compensate ( monetarily ) to the long time consumers.
I remember clearly that TRAI mandated a 70% cut in leased lines a while back and that had ZERO impact on the costs for the end consumer. All it did was fattened up the grossly high profit margins of these money grabbing telcos. Atleast I didnt see a 70% cut in my broadband bill.
- Dinesh
On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:09 PM, Raj Mathur raju@linux-delhi.org wrote:
On Monday 30 Mar 2009, Information Security wrote:
I am highly interested to "take them up in the consumer court". Anyone else who would like to support me.
...and you are?
-- Raju
Raj Mathur raju@kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
Just a simple ordinary man who is a security analyst named dilip khanolkar
On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 9:44 PM, scrapo scrapo@saswatabanerjee.com wrote:
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Information Security wrote:
it seems to be good option but really expensive compared to people who would go on downloading there mails as i think 10gb fair usage policy cap is just not good it should be more than 25 gb per month
250 - 500GB cap seems to be fair. Not 25 or 10GB. ( per month )
- Dinesh
Actually, I find it funny that you guys are ok with a "fair use cap" which in effect makes it a 10gb data limit connection while being called an unlimited connection. What it amounts to is false advertising. MTNL is much better, it does not call it an unlimited plan but says its a limited data plan.
Right. And MTNL does have unlimited plans atm. They even reduced the rates since 1.1.09. As far I could check there is no such crappy no fair use clause with MTNL. I am using Trib Unlimited 512 Kbps since 1.1.09. Before that I was on Trib Unlimited 256 Kbps plan.
Cheers!
Pradeepto
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Pankaj Jangid wrote:
I just tweeted this http://twitter.com/jangid/status/1418661430.
spread it.
Geez...grow up man. You post to a mailing list about your tweet? :P
Anyway, theres nothing false about Reliance's advertising. The plan *is* unlimited. Its just that you have to pay beyond a certain usage. They're not going to cut you off. They will simply charge you for the extra usage. ( Check out my other reply to Saswata. It should make this clear ).
What about Mumbai Mirror? They can be contacted and told of this open fraud. If anyone has direct contacts thats good or it is the plain old 'Letters to the Editor'.
Pradeepto Bhattacharya wrote:
Right. And MTNL does have unlimited plans atm. They even reduced the rates since 1.1.09. As far I could check there is no such crappy no fair use clause with MTNL. I am using Trib Unlimited 512 Kbps since 1.1.09. Before that I was on Trib Unlimited 256 Kbps plan.
I shifted to the NU plan last year and while the plan works technically, I am billed only Rs. 150/- for incoming only telephone and no rental for broadband. However the billing assumes I have a 400 MB limit and I am charged for the 400+ MB downloaded during the daytime. A few months ago I finally decided to call up the billing dept. to inform them about this error. The guy acknowledged it by checking it online while the call was on but expressed inability to make note of it unless I gave a letter to them. So I am only paying 150/- per month plus net usage above 400 MB.
Rony wrote:
What about Mumbai Mirror? They can be contacted and told of this open fraud. If anyone has direct contacts thats good or it is the plain old 'Letters to the Editor'.
It should be sufficiently scandalous to make people sit up and take notice. I remember several defamatory articles about TATA BB. Infact there was a TV news article too. But nothing good came out of it. TATA's service sucks.
- Dinesh
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
MTNL until recently gave a paltry 200MB / 1GB limits on their 2Mbps connections which is complete BS. 50-100GB soft cap on a 2Mbps connection for Rs.500 is a good plan.
As Saswata had mentioned a few years back, this is MTNL's business strategy of giving you full speed and making you pay for usage.
Rony wrote:
I shifted to the NU plan last year and while the plan works technically, I am billed only Rs. 150/- for incoming only telephone and no rental for broadband. However the billing assumes I have a 400 MB limit and I am charged for the 400+ MB downloaded during the daytime. A few months ago I finally decided to call up the billing dept. to inform them about this error. The guy acknowledged it by checking it online while the call was on but expressed inability to make note of it unless I gave a letter to them. So I am only paying 150/- per month plus net usage above 400 MB.
MTNL is a decent ISP. When things work they work well. I must agree. Also, I dug up an old post of mine, here. It seems Airtel was still "wiring" the area and hasn't found it lucrative enough to enter my buildings premises. Its been over 4 years. Is that pathetic or what?
- Dinesh
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Rony wrote:
What about Mumbai Mirror? They can be contacted and told of this open fraud. If anyone has direct contacts thats good or it is the plain old 'Letters to the Editor'.
It should be sufficiently scandalous to make people sit up and take notice. I remember several defamatory articles about TATA BB. Infact there was a TV news article too. But nothing good came out of it. TATA's service sucks.
From what I have heard, Tata's services are supposed to have improved.
Rony wrote:
From what I have heard, Tata's services are supposed to have improved.
They're still the thugs they were. Nothing has improved. Dont take the word of a couple of stray bloggers. The service SUCKS. The company SUCKS. Ratan Tata gives a $hit about what customers think about his company. Hes right now all into the "Nano" hype and they get off on their artificially inflated numbers and meaningless statistics.
- Dinesh
On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Pankaj Jangid pankaj.jangid@gmail.com wrote:
Reliance and Tata Indicom have now come out with USB modems that provide broadband speeds theoretically upto 3.1 Mbps in major cities with National low speed roaming in other areas. A client of mine told me that his friend uses a Reliance one and clocked upto 1.5 Mbps on it.
Do you have links to these plans? Thanks in advance.
I am thinking of subscribing to one of these plans: http://www.rcom.co.in/Communications/rcom/RNetconnect/netconnect_broadband_t...
The reliance guy had called up and asked if I would like to see a demo before purchase. I was surprized to hear such words from a Reliance customer care. The last time I had a reliance connection was 4 years back and their customer care was pathetic that time.
So I have this Tata Indicom Data card since 2006. Works great. Have used it at various places - from dusty Panvel to streets of Delhi to lanes of Kharagpur to beautiful campus of NIT Durgapur/Calicut. That is the end of happy story.
I called up the Tata Indicom to enquire if there a upgrade path for old users/customers to somehow move to these super fast new USB devices and plans also known as "Photon". They said nopes, the only way is to chuck the old one ( no refunds of course ) and buy a new connection from scratch, thusly pay installation fees of INR 3500 for the new device or such. The dude told me to contact the Nodal Officer Sugna Shetty ( 022 65102309 ) if I wanted to complain about this.
Cheers!
Pradeepto
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 12:38 AM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
What about Mumbai Mirror? They can be contacted and told of this open fraud. If anyone has direct contacts thats good or it is the plain old 'Letters to the Editor'.
I'm really not sure what you guys are talking about here. When all the limitations are mentioned in a plan you buy, how is it a fraud? The same goes for Airtels fair usage policy -- it's not a secret internal memo. It's a public document.
Also, regarding the cost of broadband in India, isn't there another dimension to it, i.e. the amount of traffic that goes from one country to another, that determines this cost? I had read about this somewhere (also in one of the manifestos Venky had posted) that the amount of traffic going out of India as opposed to the amount that comes in also determines this cost. So it's easy for European countries, Japan, China and the US to give download caps of 250-300 GB or so since most of their traffic is either local or outbound. Also, there are chances you might reach it since they have bandwidths up to 8 Mbps (I had read something about 3 Gbps lines in Japan). So it's really not fair to compare between the US/UK and India for this.
Also, having a download cap when you're never going to reach it is absurd -- why have it in the first place? The cap is generally analogous to the capacity of the network. While it may not necessarily fair, it is a business limitation that Airtel chooses to work in. If you as a customer do not like that cap then simply change ISPs. No point cribbing on the mailing list -- they don't read it :)
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Pankaj Jangid wrote:
I just tweeted this http://twitter.com/jangid/status/1418661430.
spread it.
Geez...grow up man. You post to a mailing list about your tweet? :P
I think the tweet is very relevant to this thread. In fact, tweets are good way to spread the message and turn the sentiments against such things. If you have a larger following on tweeter, do the same.
Anyway, theres nothing false about Reliance's advertising. The plan *is* unlimited. Its just that you have to pay beyond a certain usage. They're not going to cut you off. They will simply charge you for the extra usage. ( Check out my other reply to Saswata. It should make this clear ).
Nopes, you are wrong. The table clearly says Usage Unlimited. In other plans, there is usage limit specified in GB. So where it says unlimited, it means that there is no limit on data usage. They can not claim it was meant for time.
They distinguish between a "Flat Rate" plan and "Unlimited plan". It also depends on what definition they use. Their definition of unlimited isn't misleading or wrong. Also, they have clearly marked it and specified it in the fine print so its a losing case for the consumer.
There is a *** marked against it and the cap is mentioned, but it still amounts to false advertising and MRTP or TRAI can pull up the company on this matter. It has been declared earlier by MRTP in cases that you can not have a misleading headline and expect people to read the fine print, specially in case of passing advts - eg hoarding, etc. A good lawyer will get the judge to tear the company.
Lastly, theres a difference between - Unlimited, Unmetered, Flat fee / rate plan.
What you can pull them up for is putting *any* limits at all. As I see it they are creating an artificial scarcity of resources. We can show the court how much international bandwidth these people have and how much the country's infrastructure supports. They're hoarding it and selling it and at an artificially high price. If we convince the courts that theres plenty for everybody and yet they're showing as if theres scarcity we can not only get higher speeds, unmetered bandwidth but maybe get the ISPs to compensate ( monetarily ) to the long time consumers.
Its a business decision of each company what they will charge, as long as they are communicating it clearly to the consumer. You can however, make a complaint under MRTP to the competition commission if you can show there is cartelling or if 1 company who has the bandwidth is preventing others from using it. TRAI rules also have similar clauses, I think its under ISP-II status (meant for infrasturcture provider, not the traditional ISP). I remember reading it. In fact, I also remember there is a case being investigated on the same matter between reliance and WEMESEA 2 on being denied additional landing station rights by Tatas.
I remember clearly that TRAI mandated a 70% cut in leased lines a while back and that had ZERO impact on the costs for the end consumer. All it did was fattened up the grossly high profit margins of these money grabbing telcos. Atleast I didnt see a 70% cut in my broadband bill.
Well, all my clients got their leased line trariffs cut massively after that and it has not gone up since. A local leased line (short distance) from Kanjur to Lower Parel now cost us less than 5K per month for a 2mbps connection. It used to be more than 25K per month. 64K used to cost 10K per month.
- Dinesh
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
scrapo wrote:
Actually, I find it funny that you guys are ok with a "fair use cap" which in effect makes it a 10gb data limit connection while being called an unlimited connection. What it amounts to is false advertising. MTNL is much better, it does not call it an unlimited plan but says its a limited data plan.
I'm absolutely not rooting here for the thugs of the telecom industry. All I'm saying is if you give me a "limit" which exceeds my download capability, then in effect I have an "unlimited" connection - atleast I wont feel any difference. For example, if I have a 1Mbps connection, theoretically I can download ~327GB / month. If an ISP offers me the same connection with a, say, 500GB cap thats as good as being unlimited because I *cant* exceed the cap.
If you cant exceed, then how is it a cap ? And what is the purpose of a cap ? To prevent accounting error ?
Secondly, as I mentioned, in the US or western countries the word "cap" is used very liberally. It is *rarely* enforced.
Nope. You are wrong. The american internet users are very frustrated with caps and specially since they are not communicated or even documented. Mostly done at their own whims and fancy. Also in each area in US, there is only 1 ISP so people do not have a choice which they at least have in India (in quiet a few places). While we may not have good competition, they have none. If you are not happy, you can not do anything about it. if you complain loudly, you are going to be the only one on the block without a connection.
I have friends and clients in USA who confirm this and there is plenty of articles on this online if you wish to check.
There are more horror stories there than here. Ofcourse, their level of expectation is much different. But that is like saying that American as 2 cars per person, we have 1 for 10 people ...... not a fair compare.
Unlike Indian ISPs which will shut you off if you exceed the limit. What MTNL and other ISPs have done is, they've conned the Indian consumer. 200MB / month is a freakin' joke.
yes, they are offering a plan for Rs. 200 (US$ 4 per month) which is a rate you will not find in USA. This is a plan that is meant for light home users, people who are only going to use it to check their emails once a day. the popularity of the scheme is because in India, people want small slice service. Its a very good move. And very practical. If you want more usage, take a better plan. Whats stopping you ?
In office we are on an MTNL plan that gives us close to guaranteed 2 mbps speed which we need for our ERP connectivity and we are paying for that good quality bandwidth. There is a 45gb cap, but i know we are not going to use more than 15gb in a month except when a new Fedora version is put up. We are business users, and we do not go and download movies so we dont need 500gb downloads.
But what have you lawyers done about it?
My lawyer have not been put to that task. I vote with my wallet. I chose a service I want, and pay for it. If i am not happy with it, I switch to what options I have. The market will get them in line soon enough. Provided ofcouse the market actually wants such a thing. If you are the only person wanting 500gb transfer and wanting to pay Rs. 1000 per month for it, the vendors are not going to bother.
The TRAI rarely has, if any, support from the white collared public. All that "geeks" of our nation can do is sit at their 1337 machines and sign online petitions.
So what stops you from going and supporting TRAI by filing a complaint or at least by responding to their request for public comment on documents, etc which they keep putting up.
They cant go into Airtel's office smash some heads and show them that we mean business. We're not to be taken for a ride.
Really ? Why not instead switch to someone who is going to give you better facility ? And be prepared to pay for what you are going to use.
I'm not an extremists but the horror stories I've come to know over the years, I for one believe that strong action is essential.
Also, I can understand that India has limited interconnect with the rest of the world. Indian ISPs are charged a lot but isn't it true that Indian ISPs ( TATA and Reliance ) now own some of the largest backbones out there? Last time I checked Reliance had some 10,000 terabits of unlit fiberoptic capacity ( Was it the Flag telecom deal? Dont remember exactly ).
Reliance owns flag, which has 10K TB of bandwidth. True, but how much of it terminates in India ? Airtel has put its own fiber on east coast to connect to the main pipes through singapore. Tata is a partner of one of the large fiber groups due to ownership of vsnl. they hold the rights to build landing stations and will be sole channel for selling that bandwidth in India for 10 years (must be coming to an end soon, this is old story).
Has anybody considered going and trashing some offices and punch the A** H***s whole make plans to milk the Indian consumer? Hmm...
Saswata, how many cases have you registered against any ISP for their unfair data limits? poor customer service? Horrible uptime?
Actually, I am pretty satisfied with my data limits and get pretty good uptimes. When I was not happy, eg, with hathway and with my cable guys at home, i switched. And as i said before, i am a business user. I am willing to pay for good quality and for my usage. Its unfair data limit to you, its fair to me. I had the option of other plans if i wanted to.
Oh and the best line of them all comes from an MTNL customer care rep:
Me: So do you have any "unlimited" plans?
Rep: Yes, all our plans are unlimited.
Me: ( rolls eyes ) No. All your plans are limited upto a certain amount of data transfer like 1GB, 200MB etc...
Rep: Yeah, so?
Me: ( Gets frustrated ) They're not *unlimited*. I want an *unlimited* plan.
Rep: Umm...your plan is already unlimited.
Me: Come on lady!! The plan restricts me to a set data transfer amount!
Rep: No! You can download as much as you want to. You just have to pay for the extra transfer!
Me: x_x
( This was at a time when MTNL had introduced unlimited plans in Delhi and not in Mumbai ).
I corrected my terminology - I call them Flat rate plans :P
MTNL site is very clear that they are talking unlimited in terms of connectivity time. If you remember, earlier they used to charge for time you are connected. But they have plans like NU, which so many people here use. If you call and ask the call center for a plan that does not exist and which their website makes clear does not exist, then what do you expect the lady to do ? Create one for you ?
- Dinesh
Information Security wrote:
I am highly interested to "take them up in the consumer court". Anyone else who would like to support me.
First, you have to be a consumer, which means you need to subscribe to their plan Second, you have to be "injured", which now you cant be as you were aware of the matter before you signed up (remember this is a public listing available for anyone to pull up and see that you knew of this).
So, this one you will have to side step
regards saswata
On Tuesday 31 March 2009 00:55:29 Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Rony wrote:
From what I have heard, Tata's services are supposed to have improved.
They're still the thugs they were. Nothing has improved. Dont take the word of a couple of stray bloggers. The service SUCKS. The company SUCKS. Ratan Tata gives a $hit about what customers think about his company. Hes right now all into the "Nano" hype and they get off on their artificially inflated numbers and meaningless statistics.
tata's response to customer complaints wrt wireless modem is awesome. Also their response to any complaint regarding their hotels. As for other segments of their empire I have no experience.
On Tuesday 31 March 2009 08:14:50 Pradeepto Bhattacharya wrote:
I called up the Tata Indicom to enquire if there a upgrade path for old users/customers to somehow move to these super fast new USB devices and plans also known as "Photon". They said nopes, the only way is to chuck the old one ( no refunds of course ) and buy a new connection from scratch, thusly pay installation fees of INR 3500 for the new device or such.
show me *one* hardware product which can be upgraded? When I upgraded from DSL to ADSL, they didnt take back my old modem - sob, boohoo.
scrapo wrote:
Nopes, you are wrong. The table clearly says Usage Unlimited. In other plans, there is usage limit specified in GB. So where it says unlimited, it means that there is no limit on data usage. They can not claim it was meant for time.
Unmetered, Unlimited, Flat rate. The terminology is clearly there. I get your point and I'm not opposing it. TRAI or whoever is incharge must make sure the *correct* terminology is used while describing the plans.
There is a *** marked against it and the cap is mentioned, but it still amounts to false advertising and MRTP or TRAI can pull up the company on this matter. It has been declared earlier by MRTP in cases that you can not have a misleading headline and expect people to read the fine print, specially in case of passing advts - eg hoarding, etc. A good lawyer will get the judge to tear the company.
Lets do it then! :) Why hasn't anybody taken up Reliance to task for this?
Its a business decision of each company what they will charge, as long as they are communicating it clearly to the consumer. You can however, make a complaint under MRTP to the competition commission if you can show there is cartelling or if 1 company who has
Why doesn't anybody do this if they feel so strongly about it?
the bandwidth is preventing others from using it. TRAI rules also have similar clauses, I think its under ISP-II status (meant for infrasturcture provider, not the traditional ISP). I remember reading it. In fact, I also remember there is a case being investigated on the same matter between reliance and WEMESEA 2 on being denied additional landing station rights by Tatas.
I think it was VSNL which was bought up by TATAs and same thing for BSNL.
Well, all my clients got their leased line trariffs cut massively after that and it has not gone up since. A local leased line (short distance) from Kanjur to Lower Parel now cost us less than 5K per month for a 2mbps connection. It used to be more than 25K per month. 64K used to cost 10K per month.
Yeah so? What did it mean for *us* retail consumers? It meant lower costs. We never got any! :(
- Dinesh
Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
I'm really not sure what you guys are talking about here. When all the limitations are mentioned in a plan you buy, how is it a fraud? The same goes for Airtels fair usage policy -- it's not a secret internal memo. It's a public document.
My point exactly.
Also, regarding the cost of broadband in India, isn't there another dimension to it, i.e. the amount of traffic that goes from one country to another, that determines this cost? I had read about this somewhere (also in one of the manifestos Venky had posted) that the amount of
There are charges sure. At the highest level the ISPs are charged as per the interconnect's speed. For example, Bharti wants to connect to, say, ISP1 in the US. ISP1 will charge Bharti on the basis of the speed at which they interconnect - 100Mbps, 1Gbps etc... This is irrespective of the amount of data that flows in or out of the pipe. Its just the width of the pipe.
Measuring the volume of traffic would be against Net Neutrality because you'd be charging on the basis of how much data is transferred.
traffic going out of India as opposed to the amount that comes in also determines this cost. So it's easy for European countries, Japan, China and the US to give download caps of 250-300 GB or so since most of their traffic is either local or outbound. Also, there are chances you might reach it since they have bandwidths up to 8 Mbps (I had read something about 3 Gbps lines in Japan). So it's really not fair to compare between the US/UK and India for this.
Buddy Indian telcos like TATA and Reliance have bought Tyco and Flag telecom. They've tons of unlit capacity all over the world. Theres no shortage of capacity. Infact Indian companies now control a major portion of the international bandwidth.
Also, having a download cap when you're never going to reach it is absurd -- why have it in the first place? The cap is generally analogous to the capacity of the network. While it may not necessarily fair, it is a business limitation that Airtel chooses to work in. If you as a customer do not like that cap then simply change ISPs. No point cribbing on the mailing list -- they don't read it :)
No its not absurd.
- Dinesh
scrapo wrote:
If you cant exceed, then how is it a cap ? And what is the purpose of a cap ? To prevent accounting error ?
Its a soft cap. Its near 100% of your theoretical usage which is impossible for a normal user to exceed. So cap higher than your theoretical maximum usage is as good as unlimited, that was my point.
Nope. You are wrong. The american internet users are very frustrated with caps and specially since they are not communicated or even
Nah...
competition, they have none. If you are not happy, you can not do anything about it. if you complain loudly, you are going to be the only one on the block without a connection.
I didnt get a chance to complain.
I have friends and clients in USA who confirm this and there is plenty of articles on this online if you wish to check.
*I* *am* currently in the US. I've been dealing with Comcast for the past 10 months. No chance to complain. Only once the bank mucked up my payment. They disconnected without a notice. A single call to their CC. Connection was on since I had promised to pay. Do you hear of such things in India?
There are more horror stories there than here. Ofcourse, their level of expectation is much different. But that is like saying that American as 2 cars per person, we have 1 for 10 people ...... not a fair compare.
Indian companies have no sense of customer satisfaction. They're just to con you. American companies too do it. But its at a different level.
yes, they are offering a plan for Rs. 200 (US$ 4 per month) which is a rate you will not find in USA. This is a plan that is meant for light home users, people who are only going to use it to check their emails
Sorry, you're *wrong*. That Rs.200 is a pathetic joke and you as a lawyer shouldn't have fallen for it. I'm still assuming you're a lawyer.
Lets do some math. My daily usage is:
1. I watch about 10 youtube videos daily. Each video is about 50MB = 500MB usage. 2. I download updates, surf, download content daily = ~4-5GB = 4096 - 5120MB usage. 3. I do video conferencing daily = ~100MB of usage. 4. Miscellaneous = ~1GB = 1024MB
Total: Approximately 5.7GB daily.
Comcast: $49.99 ( a month ) MTNL: Rs.5400 * 30 days = ~Rs.160,000 = ~$3250 ( a month )
Wow...India is surely rich. Ok, lets compare the flat rate plans. MTNL's 2Mbps unlimited costs Rs.9999 = ~$200 a month! And you get less than 1/4 the speed that comcast offers.
My usage is reasonable. Even if you halve it, it still works out to $200 for MTNL and $50 for comcast.
you want more usage, take a better plan. Whats stopping you ?
$200 for a 2Mbps unlimited connection? No thanks! With MTNL's level of customer care, its shitty. I've heard horror stories about comcast too but after witnessing their service for almost a year I've found it to be very good. It too has its flaws though.
is put up. We are business users, and we do not go and download movies so we dont need 500gb downloads.
Uh...your business doesn't need it. What about others who transfer large data files or have offsite backups? hmm..? What about a home user wanting to work from home?
Really ? Why not instead switch to someone who is going to give you better facility ? And be prepared to pay for what you are going to use.
There isn't any. Theres zero competition. Search the linuxer's archive. I've been ranting about Airtel not wiring up my building for last 4 years. Go figure! Its a MONOPOLY!!
Reliance owns flag, which has 10K TB of bandwidth. True, but how much of it terminates in India ? Airtel has put its own fiber on east coast to connect to the main pipes through singapore. Tata is a partner of one of the large fiber groups due to ownership of vsnl. they hold the rights to build landing stations and will be sole channel for selling that bandwidth in India for 10 years (must be coming to an end soon, this is old story).
They own and control a large share of international bandwith in South East Asia. It isn't a big deal for them to terminate some more in India. Unless ofcourse theres already plenty and they dont need to! Hence my argument of artificial scarcity.
you expect the lady to do ? Create one for you ?
I repeat. That was an anecdote. It was at a time that Delhi got unlimited plans and Mumbai was also supposed to get. I have nothing against MTNL. They've provided good service. ( I'm saying this despite my connection @ Mumbai not working! ).
- Dinesh
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
show me *one* hardware product which can be upgraded? When I upgraded from DSL to ADSL, they didnt take back my old modem - sob, boohoo.
I think what he meant that he wanted to upgrade to the newer service. Since he already had an account with them he assumed that he'll simply be able to purchase the newer hardware and pay the rental for the newer service.
- Dinesh
On Tuesday 31 March 2009, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
I'm really not sure what you guys are talking about here. When all the limitations are mentioned in a plan you buy, how is it a fraud? The same goes for Airtels fair usage policy -- it's not a secret internal memo. It's a public document.
True. Much as one would like to fry them, They will go to the bank laughing once you loose the case. The ad clearly states that all is not fair and lovely.
Also, there are chances you might reach it since they have bandwidths up to 8 Mbps (I had read something about 3 Gbps lines in Japan).
Fibre terminated in the house man. 10Gbps. dont know what the cap is though.
Also, having a download cap when you're never going to reach it is absurd -- why have it in the first place?
972 GB is what you will get connecting between two points not going through some MAN, i.e between your office and your car for example.
No point cribbing on the mailing list -- they don't read it :)
Several do.
On Tuesday 31 Mar 2009 00:55:29 Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Rony wrote:
From what I have heard, Tata's services are supposed to have improved.
They're still the thugs they were. Nothing has improved. Dont take the word of a couple of stray bloggers. The service SUCKS. The company SUCKS. Ratan Tata gives a $hit about what customers think about his company. Hes right now all into the "Nano" hype and they get off on their artificially inflated numbers and meaningless statistics.
I was on their broadband for more than half a year. Awesome service.
Mrugesh
On Tuesday 31 March 2009, Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Rony wrote:
From what I have heard, Tata's services are supposed to have improved.
They're still the thugs they were. Nothing has improved. Dont take the word of a couple of stray bloggers. The service SUCKS. The company SUCKS. Ratan Tata gives a $hit about what customers think about his company. Hes right now all into the "Nano" hype and they get off on their artificially inflated numbers and meaningless statistics.
You dont have a clue about what you are talking.
If you thought they suck, the other dad n son corporates will make you commit suicide.
While Tata's standards are 2 orders of magnitude worse than what you would get in Japan, They are atleast much better than the rest in the country. Most wont lift a finger without threatening them with legal action.
Service according to most is making a zombie call and when threatened send over another zombie.
On Tuesday 31 March 2009, scrapo wrote:
Information Security wrote:
I am highly interested to "take them up in the consumer court". Anyone else who would like to support me.
First, you have to be a consumer, which means you need to subscribe to their plan Second, you have to be "injured", which now you cant be as you were aware of the matter before you signed up (remember this is a public listing available for anyone to pull up and see that you knew of this).
Getting info from a bunch of good-for-nothings does not count. Info must come from the company - and it does in the fine print. At best they may have to correct the ad.
On Tuesday 31 March 2009 10:24:10 Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
show me *one* hardware product which can be upgraded? When I upgraded from DSL to ADSL, they didnt take back my old modem - sob, boohoo.
I think what he meant that he wanted to upgrade to the newer service. Since he already had an account with them he assumed that he'll simply be able to purchase the newer hardware and pay the rental for the newer service.
the old service cost 2500 initially - of which I assume the major chunk is the cost of the modem. The new one costs 3500 - again major chunk would be modem cost. Anyway I have mailed customer care and asked them to consider things like transfer of sim card, phone number and deposit to the new scheme which would give some discount. (possibly a 1 or 2 hundred rupees). Let us see what they say.
Hi,
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 11:27 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org wrote:
the old service cost 2500 initially - of which I assume the major chunk is the cost of the modem.
ah well, back then i ( and anurag ) paid 5000 instead. hence it hurts.
Pradeepto
On Tuesday 31 March 2009 13:38:11 Pradeepto Bhattacharya wrote:
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 11:27 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org
wrote:
the old service cost 2500 initially - of which I assume the major chunk is the cost of the modem.
ah well, back then i ( and anurag ) paid 5000 instead. hence it hurts.
I got a special discount - 2200 plus some free usage
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.orgwrote:
On Tuesday 31 March 2009 13:38:11 Pradeepto Bhattacharya wrote:
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 11:27 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org
wrote:
the old service cost 2500 initially - of which I assume the major chunk is the cost of the modem.
ah well, back then i ( and anurag ) paid 5000 instead. hence it hurts.
I got a special discount - 2200 plus some free usage
Everyone please note that 3G is providing faster speeds of upto 8 Mbps as per the BSNL advt. today so this usb broadband technology appears to be older, therefore please weigh all options before jumping into it. Waiting a little longer may provide a faster service.
On Tuesday 31 March 2009 17:08:11 Rony Bill wrote:
the old service cost 2500 initially - of which I assume the major chunk is the cost of the modem.
ah well, back then i ( and anurag ) paid 5000 instead. hence it hurts.
I got a special discount - 2200 plus some free usage
Everyone please note that 3G is providing faster speeds of upto 8 Mbps as per the BSNL advt. today so this usb broadband technology appears to be older, therefore please weigh all options before jumping into it. Waiting a little longer may provide a faster service.
and anyway photon is only available in small areas - no use for people who travel a lot.
That's good news. Some competition. Where you saw the adv. newspaper, mag. or website.?
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Rony Bill gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Kenneth Gonsalves <lawgon@au-kbc.org
wrote:
On Tuesday 31 March 2009 13:38:11 Pradeepto Bhattacharya wrote:
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 11:27 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves <lawgon@au-kbc.org
wrote:
the old service cost 2500 initially - of which I assume the major
chunk
is the cost of the modem.
ah well, back then i ( and anurag ) paid 5000 instead. hence it hurts.
I got a special discount - 2200 plus some free usage
Everyone please note that 3G is providing faster speeds of upto 8 Mbps as per the BSNL advt. today so this usb broadband technology appears to be older, therefore please weigh all options before jumping into it. Waiting a little longer may provide a faster service.
-- Regards,
Rony. GNU/Linux No Viruses No Spyware Only Freedom. -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Also, regarding the cost of broadband in India, isn't there another dimension to it, i.e. the amount of traffic that goes from one country to another, that determines this cost? I had read about this somewhere (also in one of the manifestos Venky had posted) that the amount of
There are charges sure. At the highest level the ISPs are charged as per the interconnect's speed. For example, Bharti wants to connect to, say, ISP1 in the US. ISP1 will charge Bharti on the basis of the speed at which they interconnect - 100Mbps, 1Gbps etc... This is irrespective of the amount of data that flows in or out of the pipe. Its just the width of the pipe.
Measuring the volume of traffic would be against Net Neutrality because you'd be charging on the basis of how much data is transferred.
Nopes, I think you are wrong. I worked on such a situation once. You do not pay for the pipe, you pay the data flowing through the pipe, with a minimum charge even for not having data. These are called Termination Charges or Interconnect charges. There is even a govt body that was trying to get Indian ISP to internconnect here to avoid paying higher charges to western telecom comapnies for internet.
Net neutrality on the other hand refers to preventing discrimination between data coming from 2 alternate sources, not teh quantum of data. It has nothing to do with volume.
regards saswata
Rony wrote:
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
MTNL until recently gave a paltry 200MB / 1GB limits on their 2Mbps connections which is complete BS. 50-100GB soft cap on a 2Mbps connection for Rs.500 is a good plan.
As Saswata had mentioned a few years back, this is MTNL's business strategy of giving you full speed and making you pay for usage.
Ah !! I am so happy to hear that someone remembers what I said 2 years ago ?
regards saswata
scrapo wrote:
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Unlike Indian ISPs which will shut you off if you exceed the limit. What MTNL and other ISPs have done is, they've conned the Indian consumer. 200MB / month is a freakin' joke.
yes, they are offering a plan for Rs. 200 (US$ 4 per month) which is a rate you will not find in USA. This is a plan that is meant for light home users, people who are only going to use it to check their emails once a day. the popularity of the scheme is because in India, people want small slice service. Its a very good move. And very practical. If you want more usage, take a better plan. Whats stopping you ?
In office we are on an MTNL plan that gives us close to guaranteed 2 mbps speed which we need for our ERP connectivity and we are paying for that good quality bandwidth. There is a 45gb cap, but i know we are not going to use more than 15gb in a month except when a new Fedora version is put up. We are business users, and we do not go and download movies so we dont need 500gb downloads.
India is heavily populated and this excess demand drives the monopoly of big players in the internet scene. While it is true that if we want more download limit, we should pay more, the limits that are set do not do justice to the amount that is collected by them from us. Once a cable is laid to the home/office, and rent for the same is collected every month, it does not matter how much data goes through it. Internet is nothing but a mega network of machines. If international bandwidth is expensive, at least local sites should be freely accessible with no traffic limit, once the maximum speed per user is already preset.
But what have you lawyers done about it?
My lawyer have not been put to that task. I vote with my wallet. I chose a service I want, and pay for it. If i am not happy with it, I switch to what options I have. The market will get them in line soon enough. Provided ofcouse the market actually wants such a thing. If you are the only person wanting 500gb transfer and wanting to pay Rs. 1000 per month for it, the vendors are not going to bother.
As mentioned above, we are too large in numbers and if a few of us go away, more will come in. However as more players step in to provide competition, things will definitely improve and this change is already taking place.
scrapo wrote:
Rony wrote:
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
MTNL until recently gave a paltry 200MB / 1GB limits on their 2Mbps connections which is complete BS. 50-100GB soft cap on a 2Mbps connection for Rs.500 is a good plan.
As Saswata had mentioned a few years back, this is MTNL's business strategy of giving you full speed and making you pay for usage.
Ah !! I am so happy to hear that someone remembers what I said 2 years ago ?
If you made a valid point, you alone deserve credit for it. :-)
On Wednesday 01 April 2009 00:06:25 Rony wrote:
but a mega network of machines. If international bandwidth is expensive, at least local sites should be freely accessible with no traffic limit, once the maximum speed per user is already preset.
international bandwidth is dirt cheap - it is only in India with cartels hoarding bandwidth it is expensive. The major expense for a European data centre is 1. rent 2. man power 3. electricity
bandwidth hardly figures in the balance sheet.
On Tuesday 31 March 2009, scrapo wrote:
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Net neutrality on the other hand refers to preventing discrimination between data coming from 2 alternate sources, not teh quantum of data. It has nothing to do with volume.
Or discrimination based on application. The discrimination maybe cost or performance. The noise was about prioritising voice traffic over others and charging higher for the reduced latency. When done with a reasonable percentage of traffic, everybody elses packets will suffer higher latency. It happens often on MTNL, where you will see no packets for a few seconds then all packets will come through. No packet loss, but will screw up any latency sensitive app eg irc, av.
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
On Wednesday 01 April 2009 00:06:25 Rony wrote:
but a mega network of machines. If international bandwidth is expensive, at least local sites should be freely accessible with no traffic limit, once the maximum speed per user is already preset.
international bandwidth is dirt cheap - it is only in India with cartels hoarding bandwidth it is expensive. The major expense for a European data centre is
- rent
- man power
- electricity
bandwidth hardly figures in the balance sheet.
Good! One more reason to make downloads cap free. :-)
On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 9:09 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
international bandwidth is dirt cheap - it is only in India with cartels hoarding bandwidth it is expensive.
Haven't they managed to start and run many servers serving them? Also, what might be called cheap, might be their local rates; which might be like "OK-Rates" and not really cheap?
The major expense for a European data centre is
- rent
- man power
- electricity
bandwidth hardly figures in the balance sheet.
They have those trans-atlantic cables direct to them, don't they?
-- Roshan Baladhanvi
Rony wrote:
Reliance and Tata Indicom have now come out with USB modems that provide broadband speeds theoretically upto 3.1 Mbps in major cities with National low speed roaming in other areas. A client of mine told me that
Can we use this for VoIP and video conferencing? How is the latency?
- Dinesh
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Rony wrote:
Reliance and Tata Indicom have now come out with USB modems that provide broadband speeds theoretically upto 3.1 Mbps in major cities with National low speed roaming in other areas. A client of mine told me that
Can we use this for VoIP and video conferencing? How is the latency?
Did not try it. A client told me that his friend uses it and clocked a speed of 1.5 Mbps. However BSNL 3G is promising 8 Mbps so its better to wait and watch.
Rony wrote:
Did not try it. A client told me that his friend uses it and clocked a speed of 1.5 Mbps. However BSNL 3G is promising 8 Mbps so its better to wait and watch.
Perhaps my question wasnt clear. I wanted to know about the latency on these connections since I'd like to use VoIP and video conferencing apps which are sensitive to latencies and wireless connections aren't very good when it comes to latencies.
- Dinesh
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Rony wrote:
Did not try it. A client told me that his friend uses it and clocked a speed of 1.5 Mbps. However BSNL 3G is promising 8 Mbps so its better to wait and watch.
Perhaps my question wasnt clear. I wanted to know about the latency on these connections since I'd like to use VoIP and video conferencing apps which are sensitive to latencies and wireless connections aren't very good when it comes to latencies.
No idea. Haven't used it.
Rony wrote:
scrapo wrote:
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Unlike Indian ISPs which will shut you off if you exceed the limit. What MTNL and other ISPs have done is, they've conned the Indian consumer. 200MB / month is a freakin' joke.
yes, they are offering a plan for Rs. 200 (US$ 4 per month) which is a rate you will not find in USA. This is a plan that is meant for light home users, people who are only going to use it to check their emails once a day. the popularity of the scheme is because in India, people want small slice service. Its a very good move. And very practical. If you want more usage, take a better plan. Whats stopping you ?
In office we are on an MTNL plan that gives us close to guaranteed 2 mbps speed which we need for our ERP connectivity and we are paying for that good quality bandwidth. There is a 45gb cap, but i know we are not going to use more than 15gb in a month except when a new Fedora version is put up. We are business users, and we do not go and download movies so we dont need 500gb downloads.
India is heavily populated and this excess demand drives the monopoly of big players in the internet scene. While it is true that if we want more download limit, we should pay more, the limits that are set do not do justice to the amount that is collected by them from us. Once a cable is laid to the home/office, and rent for the same is collected every month, it does not matter how much data goes through it. Internet is nothing but a mega network of machines. If international bandwidth is expensive, at least local sites should be freely accessible with no traffic limit, once the maximum speed per user is already preset.
that would be against the concept of net-neutrality. Also i suspect its difficult to distinguish which are indian sites. My company website is www.progresspartners.co.in but is hosted on an american server. Again, I am not sure if things have changed, but earlier, even to go to Indian sites, ISPs used to connect through USA as there was no interconnect between ISPs in India.
But what have you lawyers done about it?
My lawyer have not been put to that task. I vote with my wallet. I chose a service I want, and pay for it. If i am not happy with it, I switch to what options I have. The market will get them in line soon enough. Provided ofcouse the market actually wants such a thing. If you are the only person wanting 500gb transfer and wanting to pay Rs. 1000 per month for it, the vendors are not going to bother.
As mentioned above, we are too large in numbers and if a few of us go away, more will come in. However as more players step in to provide competition, things will definitely improve and this change is already taking place.
Dinesh A. Joshi wrote:
Rony wrote:
No idea. Haven't used it.
Could you try and let me know? And BTW what BSNL 3G are you talking about?
I have to wait till someone buys it. BSNL's 3G is promising faster downloads of upto 8 Mbps. 3G services are going to be launched this year.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 12:58 AM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
I have to wait till someone buys it. BSNL's 3G is promising faster downloads of upto 8 Mbps. 3G services are going to be launched this year.
But will that be available in Cities like Delhi, Mumbai where BSNL is not directly operating?
On Saturday 04 April 2009, Pankaj Jangid wrote:
On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 12:58 AM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
I have to wait till someone buys it. BSNL's 3G is promising faster downloads of upto 8 Mbps. 3G services are going to be launched this year.
Both EvDO and 3g will provide good latencies initially, but as usual will become flaky as more users take up bw.
But will that be available in Cities like Delhi, Mumbai where BSNL is not directly operating?
A little later than tier 2 cities. MTNL has been starting new services after BSNL.
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 12:46 AM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
Pradeepto Bhattacharya wrote:
I shifted to the NU plan last year and while the plan works technically, I am billed only Rs. 150/- for incoming only telephone and no rental for broadband. However the billing assumes I have a 400 MB limit and I am charged for the 400+ MB downloaded during the daytime. A few months ago I finally decided to call up the billing dept. to inform them about this error. The guy acknowledged it by checking it online while the call was on but expressed inability to make note of it unless I gave a letter to them. So I am only paying 150/- per month plus net usage above 400 MB.
-- Regards,
Rony.
Are you talking of the Plan 160 landline connection here or are you on a combo plan ?
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Pradeepto Bhattacharya pradeeptob@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Pankaj Jangid pankaj.jangid@gmail.com wrote:
Reliance and Tata Indicom have now come out with USB modems that provide broadband speeds theoretically upto 3.1 Mbps in major cities with National low speed roaming in other areas. A client of mine told me that his friend uses a Reliance one and clocked upto 1.5 Mbps on it.
Do you have links to these plans? Thanks in advance.
I am thinking of subscribing to one of these plans: http://www.rcom.co.in/Communications/rcom/RNetconnect/netconnect_broadband_t...
The reliance guy had called up and asked if I would like to see a demo before purchase. I was surprized to hear such words from a Reliance customer care. The last time I had a reliance connection was 4 years back and their customer care was pathetic that time.
So I have this Tata Indicom Data card since 2006. Works great. Have used it at various places - from dusty Panvel to streets of Delhi to lanes of Kharagpur to beautiful campus of NIT Durgapur/Calicut. That is the end of happy story.
I called up the Tata Indicom to enquire if there a upgrade path for old users/customers to somehow move to these super fast new USB devices and plans also known as "Photon". They said nopes, the only way is to chuck the old one ( no refunds of course ) and buy a new connection from scratch, thusly pay installation fees of INR 3500 for the new device or such. The dude told me to contact the Nodal Officer Sugna Shetty ( 022 65102309 ) if I wanted to complain about this.
Cheers!
Pradeepto
The KDE Project : http://www.kde.org KDE India : http://www.kde.in Mailing List : http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-india -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
FYI, Tata Indicom CDMA USB modem (the post Photon version) is totally useless in sector 14 Vashi where I stay now.
Tata Indicom support staff (Vashi) tell me "Sector 14 mein 'feasibility' nahi hai saar".
From day one, Tata Indicom has been giving me huge packet losses in
Mankhurd ( 70% to 90%).
I feel cheated by Tata Indicom's wireless internet service and would not recommend it to any user.
Regards,
Vivek Varghese Cherian wrote:
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Pradeepto Bhattacharya pradeeptob@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Pankaj Jangid pankaj.jangid@gmail.com wrote:
Reliance and Tata Indicom have now come out with USB modems that provide broadband speeds theoretically upto 3.1 Mbps in major cities with National low speed roaming in other areas. A client of mine told me that his friend uses a Reliance one and clocked upto 1.5 Mbps on it.
Do you have links to these plans? Thanks in advance.
I am thinking of subscribing to one of these plans: http://www.rcom.co.in/Communications/rcom/RNetconnect/netconnect_broadband_t...
The reliance guy had called up and asked if I would like to see a demo before purchase. I was surprized to hear such words from a Reliance customer care. The last time I had a reliance connection was 4 years back and their customer care was pathetic that time.
So I have this Tata Indicom Data card since 2006. Works great. Have used it at various places - from dusty Panvel to streets of Delhi to lanes of Kharagpur to beautiful campus of NIT Durgapur/Calicut. That is the end of happy story.
I called up the Tata Indicom to enquire if there a upgrade path for old users/customers to somehow move to these super fast new USB devices and plans also known as "Photon". They said nopes, the only way is to chuck the old one ( no refunds of course ) and buy a new connection from scratch, thusly pay installation fees of INR 3500 for the new device or such. The dude told me to contact the Nodal Officer Sugna Shetty ( 022 65102309 ) if I wanted to complain about this.
You can not complain to the nodal officer where there is not deficiency in service. Its the discretion of the vendor to decide if they want to give you a buy back for your old hardware. you have purchased the hardware (wireless modem) and you cant say take it back and give a new one in its place. Its like calling up dell and saying that i bought a lappy last year, now you have better models so exchange it.
Cheers!
Pradeepto
The KDE Project : http://www.kde.org KDE India : http://www.kde.in Mailing List : http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-india -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
FYI, Tata Indicom CDMA USB modem (the post Photon version) is totally useless in sector 14 Vashi where I stay now.
Tata Indicom support staff (Vashi) tell me "Sector 14 mein 'feasibility' nahi hai saar".
From day one, Tata Indicom has been giving me huge packet losses in Mankhurd ( 70% to 90%).
I feel cheated by Tata Indicom's wireless internet service and would not recommend it to any user.
I have not checked tata, but Reliance website clearly shows which cities and locations it will work on the new fast protocal (is it 3G ?) and where it will work in the old cdma 1x mode. I think even tata is only offering high speed in mumbai, not at navi mumbai. i suspect they will upgrade the towers and equipment over time, though.
Regards,
-
Anshul Khandelwal -
Dinesh A. Joshi -
Information Security -
jtd -
Kenneth Gonsalves -
Mrugesh Karnik -
Pankaj Jangid -
Pradeepto Bhattacharya -
Raj Mathur -
Rajeev R. K. -
Rony -
Rony Bill
-
Roshan -
scrapo -
Siddhesh Poyarekar -
Vivek Varghese Cherian