New Airtel unlimited broadband plans are a mockery
I have praised Airtel broadband a lot in the past, they were one of the finest broadband providers in terms of speeds service and fastest broadband plans but lately I have to say think twice before you take up a Airtel broadband connection, Airtel has started this FUP (Fair Usage Policy) clause a couple of years ago and the limit was fair 100 GB of usage per month and there after your speed gets reduce to half.
But in the recent revamp of their broadband plans Airtel is just making a mockery in the name of Unlimited broadband plans, with FUP as low as 8 GB / month and under their new plans the maximum FUP is just 40 GB / month, I don’t have a problem with these guys having such low FUP, but please don’t fool people by marketing them as unlimited broadband plans, its sad to see even BSNL broadband has gone overboard and launched a lot of new plans with crazy FUP limits.
The problem with the new Airtel FUP is that the speeds get reduced to a slow crawling speeds of just 256 kbps after you hit the FUP limits, for example if you have taken the heavily marketed Impatience unlimited plans after hitting the FUP your speeds will get reduced from 4 Mbps to 256 kbps which is just insane, to say the truth there is no true unlimited broadband plan as of now from Airtel broadband.
The irony is that apart from the few metro cities Airtel doesn’t even have a decent broadband plan in other cities for example in Hyderabad the maximum speed now that you can get is 2 Mbps which has a FUP of just 20 GB, they have just scraped the faster speeds plans of 8 and 16 Mbps and the other 1 Mbps and 2 Mpbs unlimited plans.
It is just a sad state of broadband in India and looks like our policy makers are just not interested in expanding this nascent market, It’s high time that TRAI or other governing body should revamp the minimum speed of broadband from 256 kbps to at-least 1 Mbps, recently in the US the minimum speed of broadband has been set to 4 Mbps so Indian governments classification of 256 kbps as broadband is nothing but a joke.
If you are in India and planning to buy books / mobile / gadgets online, I suggest you have a look at flipkart. It is one of the best online store in India and they offer free home delivery and cash on delivery for most products.
I would agree that Airtel has lost its edge. I upgraded to 2mbps from 386 kbps expecting a HUGE increase in performance and be able to see non buffering youtube videos and 720HD videos.
let me just say even the 480 size videos needs to buffer, 720 is just no no. I have complained 10 times in the last 45 days but the problem is not resolved even though the engineer has come to resolve the issue.
When you speed check on mumbai server you get speed of 2mbps 50% of the time only rest of the servers DO NOT give 2mpbs infact speakeasy.net site gives less than 512kbps or less.
I have asked them to reduce the bill amount to 512 plan for the month as that is what I have experienced, but no word on that. I am planning to shift to bsnl as Airtel has lost its technical edge.
Airtel is not in a position to provide more than 1mps service but offer 2-4mbps. Thats cheating. I am not going to pay the bill and will go to consumer court for real pain and harrassment of needing to call airtel almost 10 times in the last month.
Yes Sunil you are right Airtel is going down the hill with its FUP and stupid plans, regarding not getting 2 Mbps that is surprising coz I am always get the speed specified with airtel 90% of the time.
Regarding Youtube buffering issue its a hit of a miss I guess youtube doesn’t priorities traffic comming to India, I am on 4 Mbps plan and get buffering issues with 720p and even 480p at times.
You should try http://vimeo.com for HD videos as they buffer a lot less than youtube.
Cheers,
Ranjit
I’m shocked. And the airtel guy I spoke to says its some stupid TRAI regulation. N I actually believed it. Are they going to change this or what??
Aurn what a bunch of liars are these airtel guys they themselves have come up with these crazy FUP plans and now they are blaming TRAI, I just cant believe they have gone so low.
If it was a TRAI regulations all other ISP would have do the same but it’s not the case.
these fup’s are absolutely shit. on one hand airtel is promoting impatience and on other creating restriction on it.
all these plans are derived in such a manner that it only leads to one conclusion : fast users should switch to faster plans and faster users to fastest and at end fastest users go to hell!!!!!!
there by making Airtel is get maximum rental’s…
[...] UPDATE Dec 2010: Currently there are no true unlimited broadband plans by airtel all there so called unlimited plans are having ridiculous low FUP limits they are just making a mockery by naming there plans as unlimited so if you are looking for unlimited broadband plans I suggest you don’t look at Airtel broadband now for updated info regarding airtel new unlimited plan see this new info that I have posted. [...]
Oh well…
my Airtel Broadband plan was Rs.799 for 256kbps Unlimited
Now i got a email that for Rs.100 extra my plan will be changed to 2Mbps Unlimited.
I wondered but sent confirmation SMS.
Then i received a call from Airtel, they said new Plan will be 2Mbps upto 8GB and 256kbps thereafter.
What a joke ! 2Mbps to 256kbps
Shame on you Airtel
Leave your response!
Catch me on Google+
Join me over 14,000 followers
on Google+
See my videos first Subscribe it’s Free
Tech2buzz.com on Facebook Join us
Recent Comments
Categories
Archives
Blogroll
Disclaimer: The posts / opinions expressed on this website are my own personal opinions and do not represent the views of any company or organization.