BSNL Broadband Buying Decision
BSNL, General Thoughts, India Broadband News, Sify Broadband January 17th, 2005
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BSNL Broadband Buying Decision
Much has been talked of the BSNL’s broadband, which clearly sucks. I wish I had clear indicators to help me decide about the buying decision. However, that was not to be and hence I decided to write for the same. In one sentence about the buying decision. Do not buy it.
The main reason is that BSNL has decided to abuse its monopoly for the spread of Internet. It is clearly indicated in the previous posts. Broadband should ideally be minus the restrictions that are imposed on, for effective use. After the announcement, TouchTel in New Delhi is planning to introduce newer tariffs. This would indeed be cheaper and hence reinforces the fact that these telecom companies want to milk the customer and leave with no real option. Even if we assume that the services are guaranteed to be good, this Blog on Sify broadband would not have come up in the first place. It merely exposes the double crap talk of these companies in offering broadband when they are offering something marginally better than dial up. Competition would force them to improve or else face the loss of customers.
Anyway, first the cost. The modem should have a buyback agreement. Incase one needs to switch over to another service provider, your investment in the modem would go waste. Would you sell that as scrap? What if the warranty is not honored by BSNL? I have not come across any statement that they are bound to replace a defective piece should you be unfortunate of landing up with one. More appropriately, there could be a nominal charge for the same. This charge could be refundable if you decide to terminate the services.
Unlimited Internet in BSNL’s parlance invariably means 24 hours connection. It has no relation to the data download or the limit for which you would be charged anyway.
The primary focus here is on the home user. For business users the packages are so exorbitant that it makes no commercial sense to invest money. Who is subsidizing whom?
I believe that even after the big launch in the metros, it is going to come at the end users by last week of January or the first week of February. Despite claims by BSNL to improve the customer service theirs remains, the worst ever experience. The Internet helpline is perennially busy or the engineer sitting at the other end is typical one of stunted development. I have encountered them from close quarters and at best, they remain good enough to draw their monthly salaries. They never seem to forget that! Perhaps this remains true for other service providers also. The next synonym for the word Idiot could be Customer Service Associate or Customer Care Executive. I am waiting for that day. BSNL is dumps down in any technical issue and resolving the downtime could take ages. If you are the kind of person who wakes up with computer on, is clearly in for disappointment.
I have already talked off the download limits. How do these people propose to affect this? If at all you feel aggrieved about being charged excessively, could you possibly haggle with the billing complaint? These people have their own “intelligent†system to deal with the billing queries and I am better off without the hassles of running around trying to get my bills rectified from an abusive sarkari babu.
It is best to wait for about 3 months. I believe according to media reports, that TRAI is going to affect drop in prices of international bandwidth and hopefully the prices should fall further. In addition, of course, the best kept secret of Reliance entering in the broadband. From insider sources, I have heard that the mobile telephony is using up major chunk of their resources and attention at present. This was supposed to have finished off by December last year but the final date has been pushed by two more months. However, there are pointers that broadband maybe affected sooner.
In 1999, the unified licensing was announced. It benefited Reliance who entered the mobile business by paying much less than others did. There was a huge hue and cry but everything settled down. At that point, of time, Reliance affected change in policy to suit itself. TRAI recently mandated that telecom companies could now offer Cable Television and currently only Reliance has made its intentions clear about the same. There was a recent report in Newsweek that Reliance has tied up with Microsoft to offer television over internet. Its plans to enter the cable TV market are huge with investments being made in creating content. Hence, the efforts being made to stream in digital television through set top boxes. Currently this is the case in areas where it is on a trial basis. Commercial launch of REAL broadband would take time for which no firm dates are known at present. It could even by the end of this month or by the end of this year.
By simple logic, if Reliance has to enter the cable TV market it has to compete with the local Cable TV Operator. This means that its offering should be less than what currently is being offered by means of prices. Realizing this early on as a threat to the established business, Hathway forayed in offering ISP services through cable. Reliance has to set up the entire infrastructure and they would not mind in doing so since the quality issues would be directly handled by them. The cost does not matter at all. Witness the revolution they got in dipping the tariffs really low. This means that they can sustain persistent losses because end result is the market share. Once that is realised, it could turn profitable. Cable TV business remains low margin business with long gestation period.
If TRAI does not play spoilsport, predatory prices by Reliance would spoil the party for everyone. Insider sources claim that they are watching the foray of other telecom companies with interest. Perhaps they could even offer set top boxes for free. BSNL would be the biggest looser on the broadband front. However, they too are planning to offer television trough ADSL. Is anyone interested in watching Door Darshan?
I would ideally wait for Reliance to announce its plans and have BSNL realize that they are basically a bunch of monopolists. In order to survive, they ought to fight back on the prices.
However, currently if BSNL offers unlimited downloads and uploads, as we all understand without volume based or time based billing, its a big YES. I would not mind the cost of the modem then. The main reason is that it has set up a world-class supporting infrastructure to carry the data. This is again the inside information that is leaking out on this website. The end support remains useless. That is the main hindrance.
I sincerely hope that the days of having LAN parties and real multi player online gaming are here with speeds in excess of 2Mbps. It would be a dream and wish come true.
Tags: BSNL, Other ISPs, Reliance, Sify Broadband
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Unless someone has to download lot of software, or Mp3 , video conferencing etc.
And if a client wants to use for such application then let him pay little more Price there is nothing free in this world.
Internet may be free or priced low in few countries in the world.But to bring that connectivity till here costs.Its not free.
Secondly Quality of Internet also matter.
I feel as this is tariff at launch.As international bandwidth rates will comedown these rates will also change.
Everyone wants to remain in business.Things will chane over a period.Wait for few months.
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Also MTNL is yet to completely start its service some 17 days after "launch". They have only 2 exchanges ready for DSL service as on today. I was told by MTNL employees that they will start their service only after March, 15th and in most parts of Delhi the service will start by the end of June only. Which means a wait of another 6 months even for the service which is clearly a ripoff.
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but dont go for sify broadband that is really sucks i am getting only 10 kb
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Thank you.
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Looks like I am little bit late in reading this post but i don't know if i did the wise thing by not buying the modem but renting it.I know its going to be much more costlier than buying it but i thought i can always dump BSNL if i find their service not up to my expectation.i havent got my connection yet.those guys(BSNL engineers) were at my house to get this working and at the end of 3 hrs could not set it up and went back putting the blame on my ethernet card even though its working perfectly.
Hope things will work fine.
Just had a query.Do BSNL also charge for browsing(visiting websites,clicks like normal browsing functions) under the 500 Rs plan?
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CMD A.K.SINHA 23372424 23372444 cmdbsnl@bsnl.in
Director(Finance) S.D.SAXENA 23714141 23314141 sdsaxena@bsnl.in
Director(Operations) S.C.CHOUDHARY 23037142 23738999 23734242 scchoudhary@bsnl.in
Director(Commercial & Marketing) N.K.MANGLA
23734064 23734166 nkmangla@bsnl.in
Director(Human Resource Development) S.K.JAIN 23734070 23734072 skjain@bsnl.in
Director(Planning & New Services) R.L.DUBE 23734073 23734075 rldube@bsnl.in
Company Secretary & GM(Legal) H.C.PANT 23353395 23353389 hcpant@bsnl.in
csgml@sancharnet.in
Senior Deputy Director Generals
Architect VIJAY CHAND 23738113 23316988 -
Building Works A.K.GUPTA 23711172 23716036 23310195 ashok_gupta@bsnl.in
Business Development ANIL KAUSHAL 23734010 23734012 anil_kaushal@bsnl.in
ddgbd@sancharnet.in
Cellular Mobile Telephone Service (Operations & Mntc) RAKESH AGRAWAL 23734305 23358924 23724304 ragrawal@bsnl.in
ragrawal@sancharnet.in
Customer Services N.D.Grover 23326255 23327656 ndgrover@bsnl.in
Establishment Finance & Costing S.D.SAXENA 23734055 23329125 sdsaxena@bsnl.in
Establishment S.C.MISRA 23734050 23734051 scmisra@bsnl.in
Electrical R.RAVINDRAN 23736527 23322398 sddgelec@sancharnet.in
Finance Personnel - 23710465 23388589 -
Information Technology V.K.MAHENDRA 23714191 23765290 vkmahendra@bsnl.in
Maintenance Switch RAM KUMAR 23714455 23354549 ram_kumar@bsnl.in
Network & Work Study R.K.Batra 23710270 23353304 -
O & M - 23734340 23734300 -
Personnel R.K.P HINDUJA 23711034 23328498 rkp_hinduja@bsnl.in
PF S.R.KAPOOR 23718493 23734223 srkapoor@bsnl.in
Public Grievance SUDHIR KUMAR
23738883 23738780 ddgpg@bsnl.in
Strategic Planning R.N. PADUKONE 23357760 23737760 rnpadukone@bsnl.in
Switching - 23715041 23731590 -
Transmission SHIWA SHANKAR SINGH 23372385 23372385 sssingh@bsnl.in
New Services ARUN KUMAR 23323957 23323367 srddgns@sancharnet.in
Deputy Director Generals
Administration D.MANNA 23372495 23718288 dmanna@bsnl.in
ddgadmn@sancharnet.in
Accounts A.S.RAY 23734163 23734164 asray@bsnl.in
Budget & Banking Finance ANITA SONI 23734077 23734033 anita_soni@bsnl.in
Cellular Mobile Telephone Service N.SUNDARAMAN 23710400 23734014 nsraman@bsnl.in
ddgcmts@del1.vsnl.net.in
Commercial S.K.SETH 23734205 23765467 skseth@bsnl.in
Corporate TaskForce Y.P.KATARIA 23714242 23736752 katariayp@bsnl.in
Internal Audit SUMITA PURKAYASTHA 23345923 26889161 -
Broadband LAV GUPTA 23734057 23734284 lavgupta@bsnl.in
Long Term Planning AB VARADARAJA RAO 23716482 23351291 varadaraja@bsnl.in
Marketing A.K.JAIN 23734045 23734046 akjain@bsnl.in
ddgmkg@sancharnet.in
Material Management PRADEEP NAGPAL 23715960 23710198 pradeep_nagpal@bsnl.in
ddgns@sancharnet.in
Management Information System N.K.NARANG 23717055 23372257
nk_narang@bsnl.in ddgmis@bol.net.in
Network Management A.K.MITTAL 23711419 23329800 akmittal@bsnl.in
Regulation K.S.GULIANI 23734097 23734174 ksguliani@bsnl.in
ddgr@nda.vsnl.net.in
Restructuring S.B.KHARE 23738344 23736752 sbkhare@bsnl.in
Rural Network A.N.RAI 23714242 23736752 an_rai@bsnl.in
SPF H.T. SANGKHUMI 23734253 23372532 -
Staff Relations S.K.GUPTA 23368660 23368470 skgupta@bsnl.in
Telecom Factory ABDUL MAJID 23322255 23712255
abdul_majid@bsnl.in
International Relation A.K.PATHAK 23717217 23711516 akpathak@bsnl.in
Telegraph Services C.V.GOPINATH 23717074 23353424 cvgopinath@bsnl.in
ddgts@del.vsnl.net.in
TRF SHARAD JOHOREY 23369234 23369246 -
TRAINING A.K.MISHRA 23714014 23711516 mishra_ak@bsnl.in
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Firstly the silly download limit has to go .
I donot think international bandwidhth charges are for the amount of data you download ,but only for the bandwidth ..Also the BB prices in SE.Asian countries is much lower than in other regions
Secondly the minimum speed should be set to 512 Kbps which is the standard in most countries offering broadband
Take a look at Korean BB services ..4mbps unlimited VDSL(similar to ADSL but better speed) for < than 30,000 Won i.e approx Rs 1300...Look at this site(preferably in Firefox) if u want to know what I mean
http://www.letskt.com/en/Product/Service_conten...
If BSNL (or any other ISP) sticks to such ridiculous tariff structures & bandwidth rates it looks like it with take another 5 years to get to where Korea is now in terms of BB..Come on people do we want that ???
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for all those who dont have broadband n who would like to go n take up a new BB connction....
let me tell u abt BSNL:well they seem to be giving unlimited download n upload usage till june for those who register before 31st march n tat period is over... its too bad on them to covr all the costomers within 31st march n trying to supress the up coming bb sevices of others like reliance..
Tata indicom: after buying Dishnet DSL they r trying to keepup the pase 4 the existing customers.. i have been using Dishnet DSL for the past 3yrs. n i know its a bit costly at tat time but b4 1 and a have yrs. they provided 512kbps for all the customers....... tat was the coolest part n they still provide the same speed for all the new customers.i found the new rates to be nominal compared to tat of airtel n other bb service providers.
Airtel: These guys have a delay in coming to the broadband servicing...they actually bought the touchtel broadband n provide unlimited download n upload usage....... but u have to buy a phone line from them to get the unlimited upload n download.... n rates seem to be the same as others....
MTNL:saw the tarrif of mtnl.... u can go for bsnl if u want r going to choose mtnl.
Reliance:they have everything ready......but some delay is there....... also the tarriff its really gr8........ i called them n asked abt the tarriff.... they have 3 options.... 128kbps its 750 per month. for 256 its 1200 n for 512 kbps its 3300... n guess wat.....the download n upload limit is 10GB per month.... i was not able to believe it when they told me this.....i called them again to confirm tat its 10gb..
let me come to the point of getting a new broadband conn.
i would suggest everyone to wait for reliance n take it up.
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pls give me the rate the of the 64kbs ca? fee in par month
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Why just say BSNL services are not good?
I use Reliance too and happy with both!
Sandeep