OMG OMG : Caps on Unlimited Broadband Plans

[RajaPraveen]

[rpm19050]

another thread going down the drain. don't you guys get it? if airtel gets away with it, all other ISP' will follow suit, one day or the other. all ISP' in india have at some point or the other shown lack of service quality. one user may think mighty fine of the isp and the user next door may be filing a suit. close this wasteful debate on which isp is the best. they all $uck, just that they do in their own sweet ways.

file griviences, join the fcbk group inspite of whether you use airtel or not.

[rpm19050]

TRAI' consultation paper does not talk of FUP. it does not even acknowledge it as an internationally followed practice.in fact, trai feels that india has sufficient uplink bandwidth capacity available in order to cater to the current userbase.

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData...per15jan09.pdf

and CC guys are singing that FUP is a TRAI guideline. if airtel gets away with this, the next thign would be "voluntary availability policy": " Bharti airtel reserves to withold bandwidth of a user if bharti airtel feels that this would be unfair.Bharti airtel may choose to block bandwidth availability if the consumer is found to be accessing more than one websites at a time or downloading any software updates"

[Cyn1c]

When is this thing taking effect? When do they go live with this BS?

[rpm19050]

effective 7th feb 2009 sir. the consultation paper was out on 15th jan, and the responses were to be received by 2nd feb. airtel went ahead and compared itself with trai. then they raised the pricing of plans and imported blown down version of fup ( 250 gb limit on 10mbps+ plans blown down to 15 gb limit on a 256kbps connection.). then, they went ahead and thot of themselves as above trai and broke the primary stipulation of trai on broadband: 256kbps ground bottom

chk this out, one airtel guy' trying hard to counter:

news: Airtel sets a limit to unlimit...roadband Forum

and this thread' the coldest out here on E. people who were planning on bit torrent NAS and talking of 'how much do you download in a month' have gone into hibernation?

[sahilm]

Originally Posted by Cyn1c When is this thing taking effect? When do they go live with this BS?

It has only been implemented in South India as of yet. If you see the tariff listings on Airtel's website, all 256 & 384 kbps plans(in southern circles) have a "speed subject to Airtel's fair usage policy" rider.
The 512kbps & 1 Mbps plans don't have any such rider as of yet. Instead it says, "plan applicable for residential connections having only 1 PC"(whatever that means).

My hunch is, they are only going to throttle the 384 & 256 kbps plans. On the contrary no such riders are present in any plan in Northern India. I called up customer care and they have denied the existence of any such policy(as of 13/02). The CC executive also confirmed the fact that they recieve daily updates on changes in plans.

You can check the details yourself -> :: Airtel :: Broadband Services - Tariffs - For You.

[Free Radical]

I suggest no "Bandwidth Hugger" should give up their Airtel connection right now.
This is what they want and you'll be playing right into their hands.
They want to get rid of the leechers and get more of the innocuous emailing orkutting surfer.

The best thing will be to make sure all your downloads are queued between 8 am to 4 pm.

Better yet, download a linux distro or schedule your automatic updates to 11:00 am - 12:30 pm and 2:30 pm - 4:00pm

And each of us should take an oath never to recommend an Airtel "Broadband" connection or any of their telecom services in a public forum.

[rpm19050]

^^ no. the CC clarified that FUP is there on all 'unlimited' plans.and that it is a trai guideline. and that, once quoted in written will land them in deep soup.

[Free Radical]

i suggest all airtel users make sure they dl something or the other at max speed and hammer their servers during office hours. this is nothing but discriminatory to the average home user.

[Gdn | TD]

I'm just waiting for a few victims of throttling before starting to think about changing my ISP coz, so far, Airtel has been the best thing that has happened to my place..

[Free Radical]

Originally Posted by jsmithe @ the other site Since Airtel is capping unlimited plans, here are a few suggestions: 1. The people affected by the caps are usually those who recommend or setup broadband connections for friends, relatives, businesses and others. Use this power to steer existing and potential customers away from ISP's such as Airtel who set unfair and arbitrary limits on connections. 2. When Airtel reps. or anyone else mentions a TRAI directive ask them for the details of the directive and the link on the TRAI site. TRAI has not recommended nor required bandwidth caps on unlimited plans. The papers that are being referred to are "Consultative Papers". These are ISP responses to queries from TRAI as to why the ISP's are unable to maintain Quality of Service (QOS) requirements that TRAI specified for broadband connections and the large number of complaints TRAI receives regarding ISP QOS. 3. Maintain detailed logs of hourly connection speeds (use software like bitmeter http://codebox.no-ip.net). This might come in handy if and when going to consumer court. Airtel throttles connections to 256 kbps but the average speed then drops below 256 kbps which makes the delivered speed no longer a broadband connection per TRAI rules. 4. Do not accept Airtel's offers of upgrading to a higher connection speed with unlimited bandwidth if they indicate that it will not be capped. They might changes their "Unfair usage policy" on the new plan too, once you have switched plans. I wonder at the magic of taking a higher speed connection immediately transforming a bandwidth hugger into a non bandwidth hugger. Where is the logic in this? Appears to be purely an effort to squeeze out more money from the Indian users into Airtel's pockets. 5. As someone else pointed out, ask Airtel to pro-rate the bill with the lower rates from the date the bandwidth is capped since as a result of the capping, they are charging for something they are not delivering. 6. Hit Airtel where it hurts, their pocketbook: a) Get potential new subscribers who ask your opinion, to register a query with Airtel regarding connections. Let Airtel do all the groundwork for the new connection they think they are going to get. However have the potential new subscriber subscribe to another ISP and indicate to Airtel that the reason they did not finally select Airtel was because of it's Unfair Usage Policy. Have them give Airtel this link. b) When canceling your Airtel plan or speaking/e-mailing customer care, indicate that you are switching to an ISP without caps on unlimited connections. Provide them the link to this page Provide them with the amount they have charged you to-date and the amount they will lose on an annual basis due to loss of your subscription. Indicate that you are a decision maker / influencer when it comes to broadband connections and the number of potential customers and revenue Airtel will lose as a result. When canceling your broadband line, cancel your phone service also (landline, mobile). Point out the loss in revenue. c) Publicize the fact that Airtel can and will change agreements on a subscriber to it's benefit whenever it chooses irrespective of the initial agreement signed. Ofcourse any ISP can do this, but Airtel will lead the market in doing this. 7. Complain to TRAI for what it's worth. TRAI needs to wake up and enter this day and age where worldwide broadband is defined in terms of Mbps and not in Kbps. They need to make the so-called Indian ISP's upgrade their infrastructure and not keep pushing ancient slow speeds as broadband. 8. Rebut arguments that people raise saying that capping is done worldwide: Some useful facts: a) Download caps are much higher as are bandwith speeds. Eg. Comcast in the USA (which btw is the most hated cable ISP in the US which the Airtel marketing robots are fond of pointing out caps at 250 GB and the speed is 12 Mbps not the piddling 15/20/25/40 GB caps and the 256/384/512 kbps speeds. b) cost of broadband access is higher in India when comparing speeds and purchasing power. Eg. Comcast in the US charges $42.99 for speeds upto 12 Mbps with a 250 GB cap. What does Rs. 2150 get you in India? Also $43 is not equal to Rs. 2150 in purchasing power terms. 9. How about getting a consumer court action initiative going? 10. If not already done, can the admins of this board, make this post a sticky? 11. Any others ......

11. If you are on Airtel, make sure that all your downloads are queued up in the corporate work hours.

[Rockfella]

Bad news for all. I hope they dont cancel my UL GPRS

[stonedsurd]

Warcry up!
I've emailed the PMO directly. He's quite the swift actioner, our Doc Manny -- the last time I emailed I got a constructive response within 3 days!

Also got dad on swiftly getting me email adds of TRAI people so I can spam the **** out of their inboxes with a standard message.

[Free Radical]

^ stoney. you scare me

[stonedsurd]

Hey. There's some things I'm passionate about, ok?