Reliance Broadband: More delays

Ho hum. We all know about it right?

Well, it seems that Reliance is extending its launch date by another 3 months. They do have commercial services in couple of cities but that too in isolated pockets and in “test phase”.

Initially, they are launching/planning to launch Pre Paid landlines. To me, this defeats all the purpose of owning one. However, Broadband would come in much much later. This is as per the “insider source”. Frankly, he was not willing to comment on the pricing details; it has not been finalized as yet. Probably.

Therefore, we suffer more wait. IPTV is anyways scheduled for end of this year. Maybe next year or next to next year end. Or probably not!

This is of course coarse and gross stupidity. Reliance would need a miracle to pull this off. With increasingly aggressive BSNL and Airtel, they would need to pull up something really “brilliant” from their hats to make people switch. Unlike the churn in mobiles, people hardly change their landline numbers. So of course, it’s a long-term deal that they are looking at.

For years, despite presence of another private player in my neighborhood, I haven’t shifted from BSNL. Frankly because HFCL Connect offers below par services than BSNL. This is a highly contested claim and it remains my opinion. They don’t reply to mails nor any feedback comes in from their local office. Plus, their asinine refusal to dig up for telephone lines despite the fact that it’s just 500 meters from the main road to my house.

In India, stupidity is not limited to BSNL. It is cross spectrum. Connect in any case is banking on 32k/64k as “broadband” while over pricing the 256k with just 400 MB as free limit. So much for the private telecom revolution.

Reliance/ Connect would really have to entice me with an offer that I cannot resist. For example, using up free 100 GB in a month and then giving a gift coupon or something. Or unlimited bandwidth with assurance coming in from their CMD and 25 Mbps throughput; or fiber to home cabling or something similar. Well, in my dreams!

Some day, I tell myself, we would not need to bitch about ISP’s. Still, 10 years down the line, we would see the broadband revolution limited to urban areas. Until the last mile access is freed, this wont spread to rural areas where it is more urgently required.

Why doesn’t this fact register to a babu sitting up and pushing files?

Why doesn’t Reliance understand this either?