There are many interesting comments posted in the course of the conversation here for a free and frank discussion. I am posting here the frustration faced by a user from Calcutta who is famous as “pupudada”. I welcome more stories on the user’s perspective here.

What more can one expect when even the `Minister of Communications’ Mr. Dayanidhi Maran promises and yets fails to deliver? We have been seeing the era of the Internet being ushered in on the 15th of August 1995. At that time a dial-up 56kbps was the defacto standard, yes, that my `dear’ friend in the Netherlands had a 512kbps broadband connection was a matter of envy for me…

Today, while I have a broadband (sic) connection of 256kbps (unlimited) and pay roughly U.S.$20 (assuming one Dollar to be equal to Rs.50 for calculation purposes) for the same.. my `dear’ friend pays U.S.$40 for his 1gbps connection. sweet? So, during these years while we have progressed approximately 4.5 times from 56kbps to 256kbps, my `dear’ friend has jumped 2048 times.. time to say Mera Bharat Mahaan!

The starter of this topic.. my `frustrated & bandwidth starved’ friend has just pointed out what is the `tip of the iceberg’ of the callous services with which we are treated to (and what hurts me more.. is that we accept the same silently like `sheeps being taken to slaughter’.. what the hell?

Are we not paying for the Broadband Services.. If yes, why are we paying so much more?

Purchasing bandwidth is the same all over the world.. give or take a fraction of a ignorable percent.. so it is obvious who is reaping the moolah at the cost of whom.. moreso when the `public owned’ BSNL too does not live up to its own statements.

Come on dear friends.. its high time we started the ball rolling.. yes you have to believe that `together we can achieve’.. it has been proved in the past.. the biggest mistake was to relax once we had achieved our previous goal.. we should have kept up the pressure right from then itself..

Sorry for the slow speed at which I am typing.. but, I am on Narrowband ™ India

Airtel launches it’s own crappy plans based on “speeds upto 2 Mbps”. As usual, they have been crowing about the so called being the “market leader” without actually being one. A close look at their plans would reveal an old wine in a new bottle. A GB here or there doesn’t really excite any person who is clued in to the “always- on” connectivity.

Airtel would seriously need to make the things happen for itself if they need to be taken seriously. Bharti Mittal is busy in retail without realising that there is a huge potential market out for itself in the fixed land line business.

Were the “F” is Reliance “broadband”?

I am sick of the awful speeds, the promises made in the name of “Broadband”. We as users have been taken for a ride BIG time and I hate the snail pace. We are being ripped off without any safeguards.

I am proposing to all the members to get together and fight for our rights instead of getting on the forums and complaining about the ISP’s. We have done it earlier when couple of members got together to petition BSNL to introduce 256kbps unlimited. It works when all of you would get together on a common platform.

The broad contours of my idea is to file for information under Right to Information act to BSNL, TRAI, Department of Telecom, MTNL to reveal their plans for the following:
1)What steps have you taken to ensure the quality of services?

2)What is the actual cost of bandwidth, how much bandwidth is available, where do you source your bandwidth needs, what does it cost to provide the same to the end consumer?

3)What is the basis for such high user charges?

4) What is the grievances redressal mechanism? What actions do you take to ensure that the complaints are handled in a time bound manner and that the orders passed by the authority are binding on the concerned officer?

5)This one for TRAI: What have you ensured that your recommndations are binding on the concerned telecom companies and how do you ensure compliance to reign in the offending companies?

As I mentioned, these are the broad ideas under which I intend to work on. I would be glad if you could bounce on in some ideas here.

Frankly, the world is moving beyond the kbps speeds all over and I find no end to the miserable pathetic narrow band for which I am paying my hard earned money without getting my money’s worth. The same thing can be addressed for the mobile services but then we ought to focus on one thing here for the time being.

I have been reading horror stories of customers being taken for a ride when they have been promised the earth and instead get peanuts. Why don’t you all get together on a common platform and raise your voice against this? As per the TRAI’s official documents, they are duty bound to safe guard our interests instead of just drawing their salaries and do nothing. In similar vein, BSNL is duty bound to serve us instead of acting unilaterally the way it does.

I welcome more ideas and lets do something together for a long last solution rather than just whine around.

(Crossposted on the Broadbandforum.in)