…is not strictly limited to India.
Yes, you heard me. India is not the only country with FUPs – check some ISPs abroad. I dare you.
While I support the move to increase the lower-limit to 2mbit/s, the reason for the ISP’s opposition to this is obvious: the financial implications are huge. BUT SPEED DOESN’T COST: Gigabytes do.
All differ depending on the technology in question, but generally speaking I can deliver you 1 gigabyte at 1, 20, 50 or 100 megabits and with a small variation in the actual cost of the equipment (ADSL, VDSL, Fiber), it costs me basically the same. Consider now the various plans available from Airtel, BSNL, Tata, Reliance and others with roughly the same size data-cap: with a price difference based strictly on speed. Doesn’t that piss you off?
(Case in point: Airtel’s 30 and 50mbit/s plans. Both 200GB data caps. Delivered at 30mbit/s or 50mbit/s. Price: Rs1,000 different). #FAIL
So while the slow speeds and tiny data-caps and FUPs may seem like profiteering now, at the current pricing levels (under Rs2000), mandating an increase to a minimum of 2mbit/s (which I personally am hoping for) to call the product “Broadband” would seriously damage profitability of ISPs whose costs can be up to Rs20/GB – or more (depending on their negotiating skills!)
That is, unless some things change.
First: wholesale prices need to come down - 1Cr per year for 155mbit/s is outrageous (even 50 lakhs is still outrageous). On USA-UK, Singapore-USA, Japan-USA, you can get 10Gbit/s for about US$10k/month.
Considering that of all the capacity to India (total is about 20-23 terabits right now) the total usage is still only being measured in gigabits, it’s clearly not a capacity problem, it’s a price problem.
Secondly, NIXI’s tariff structure to be changed to a flat-rate – nowhere else in the world charges per GB at the peering-exchange! In fact, I’d be happy to pay Rs3,00,000 per MONTH for 1gbit/s if the per-GB charges were eliminated.
Thirdly, Local Loop Unbundling – I would suggest (both as an foreigner and as someone starting an ISP) that this be done as soon as possible. Yesterday is better. In fact, it should have been done in 2004 when it was suggested originally – perhaps India would not be in the situation it is now.
But if it is done, then we can eliminate dependence on cablewalas, as they aren’t helping India’s Broadband situation, and BSNL/MTNL can start to get another revenue stream from ISPs who want to lease the copper.
Of course, I outlined all of this in the document to which Sushubh & I contributed but the author of this article (Caught in the Net of slow broadband) sort of failed to mention… well… almost all of it.
So as a consumer, I disagree with FUPs in general. As an ISP/business owner, I see the point of them and that they are a necessary evil.
So what’s my comprimise?
We don’t need to eliminate FUPs completely, just for the FUPs to be fair to the consumer.
This post was originally posted as a comment to the online version of the ToI article mentioned above, but at the time of writing had not been moderated/accepted. It has been modified from it’s original form for some clarification and comic effect.
This content is published under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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By the way, I wrote to Javed this evening regarding my response to the ToI article:
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Javed,
I had written a comment/response to the article published in the ToI yesterday (timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/Caught-in-the-Net-of-slow-broadband/articleshow/6538767.cms), but it has yet to be moderated and accepted. Personally, I think it contains a summary of some of the important information which was provided to you by Sushubh and I, but was not (or could not) be included in the article for whatever reason.
While I enjoyed the article and felt it raised some good points, something was missing. There is no call to action. So I asked myself, what's the point in having such an article if there is no call to action? Even though this is for the most part true, India is the world's largest democracy, so we (well, you... I'm not a citizen) should take this to heart and say "we've identified what's wrong, now here's how to fix it".
Unless we do that, all it does is make us sound like we're just a bunch of idiots whining about being screwed over by the big companies. "What do we want??? Something!!! When to we want it??? Now!!!" - and that's precisely what we'll get. I personally come from a very small democracy, and although I'm not after the publicity or anything right at the moment, my mission in India is to fix the broadband situation.
Below, I have included for your reference the comment which was submitted on the ToI website, and would also like to mention that there is an elongated version of the same at broadbandblog.in/993-the-most-hated-thing-about-indian-broadband
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To which I received this response.
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Hi Mathew,
I appreciate that you liked the article and concede your point that it lacked "call to action". I am sure you will understand that being a mainstream newspaper, we mostly cater to a readership that is not very tech savvy. My purpose behind the article was to inform people that something like Fair Usage Policy exists and its a hindrance to good browsing experience. Also, it's unfortunate that we did not have the space to go into the details.
You had given some fantastic inputs but that information was deemed too technical for our readers by the desk/production team. But as I said earlier, I will write about the issue at my official Times Of India blog and there we can talk a lot more freely. I will be out of be the town for about a week, once I come back I will shape the article for the blog because what you have told me surely deserves to be told to others.
Before a journalist, I am someone who is passionate about technology and Web. I assure you that I will do whatever I can to make people aware of Fair Usage Policy and highlight where the problems exist.
As for your comment at Times Of India website, I am sorry that I can not do much as far as approval or disapproval is concerned. It's a separate department. Though I am sure that your comment will be approved.
Warm regards
Javed Anwer
Chief Copy Editor & Feature Writer (personal tech)
Times Of India, New Delhi
+919818218551
WebWise : Javed Anwer's blog-The Times Of India
http://twitter.com/Javed_Del
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