I have decided to post the mail recieved from Mr Sanjeev Verma who is the Jt. Dy Director General(Broadband Network Planning). In the interest of fairplay and to back up my own claims.

Since Email is accorded the legal status, it is to be presumed that he wrote from an official’s perspective. Therefore his mail is on record here. It struck me to post this one here because any further communication from BSNL regarding unlimited plans isnt forthcoming. My mails have been meeting with the same silence as before.

The reply from Mr Sanjeev is as follows (spelling mistakes et al). I swear I haven’t changed anything Emphasis is mine:

The 400 MB plan is a entry level plan meant for new users to get the feel of broadband. For that 400 MB limit is more than sufficient based on the usage statistics. This details is available in this website regarding the cap and the incremental charges. Moreover, the customer also have the flexibility the amount of download he has done on a per session basis.

This is detailed to thrust upon the fact that BSNL always believes in trasnsparency (!). If something is charged, it is explicitly indicated. (Well, I wish they could also claim the same thing about replying to consumers).

Secondly, the plan has been subjected to revision from the inception of broadband service. There was no free surfing in the night (fron 2AM to 8 AM)at the time of launch, but has now been offered. Secondly. earlier incremental charges per MB was around Rs 2 which has been brought down to Rs 1.20.
(For BSNL this must have been a generational shift to introduce unlimited surfing!)

Yes, there is scope for further reduction which will be done as the international bandwidth rate falls further. (No scope as yet. TRAI is sleeping over it still. VSNL needs to be reigned in. I belive that BSNL can look for alternative sources and try and negotiate the best rates for itself).

Thirdly, For the application suiting to your need, we are in the process of coming out with unlimited download plan. This will free from the burden of usage charges. (WHEN?)

Hope this answers the points raised by you.

So, the top brass is on record; they fail to check their mistakes; treat the end customer as an idiot; believe in doling out favours as in the British raj of yore whereby you had to submit your “petition” asking for favours. This bureaucratic mindset has pervailed right through.

You can direct your queries to Mr Sanjeev Verma at sanjeevverma(at)bsnl.in

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