Issues of Interest : Finally, Mainstream Internet Telephony
Indian Govt has finally slashed the entry fees for National Long Distance and International Long Distance operators from 100 Crores to just 2.5 Crores
Deccan Herald Reports:
The news that these Telephony operators will be allowed to provide Broadband access is promising.
- *International calls cheaper
- *Massive cuts in NLD/ILD entry/licence fees
- *Access providers allowed to provide broadband services.
- *Mandatory provision scrapped
Will we atlast see a new breed of mortar and brick companies scrambling to provide telephony+broadband services that will finally lift India into the broadband club?
Currently Indian broadband rates are atrociously costly. 'Go broadband for just 250 Rs/month' advertises BSNL for its Dataone Broadband Service. But it comes with a measy 0.4 Gb (400 Mb) bandwidth limit that makes Dataone one of the dearest broadband in the whole world. Forget Indians, even Americans won't be able to afford BSNL Broadband. Ref: Dataone Tariff
For 20 bucks a month you can get unlimited calls on VoIP in the US and parts of Europe. For the same 20$, one can land a decent DSL connection with unlimited bandwidth usage. In India, this will probably remain a deam as long as the Govt. is hell-bend on milking this segment with license fees and babudom levies while they keep singing the 'promoting IT' song. And they wonder why internet penetration is so low even among those who own computers.
Among Indian players, perhaps only Bharti's Airtel Broadband has the best preposition of all Broadband providers for personal use: 128 Kbps Broadband with unlimited usage for home users at 500 to 699 Rs/month (: Combo plan, price varies according to region). Even then, for business users, it is actually one of the costlier options. 256 Kbps Broadband with Bandwidth of 1.5 Gb costing 1400 Rs burns the wallet faster than BSNL.
The most ugly player is Sify Broadband. They however were the first to offer 'unlimited' plans although these unlimited plans feature such bumper speed-breakers that will break your browsing neck. The Internet is rift with 'Beware the Sify' notices by fans. The major frustration other than the pricing and speed with Sify arises from the fact that Sify outsources its last mile connectivity to shady technologically challenged and incompetent Cable operators who are at liberty to fleece customers and provide the sloppiest of technical support - if any. While the LAN network grew, the uptime and quality of service is hardly a thing to write about.
A forum to discuss Indian Broadband scenario is here
AFAIK, there are no Satellite Internet Providers in India.
The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.
My ICQ 839253
