Protest

A few days back, I wrote about how vendors are tricking customers with the “unlimited broadband” packages. Unfortunately there’s another broadband scam happening. Have you noticed?

Broadband vendors claim speeds of 256 kbps, 512 kbps or even more. However the customer never gets speeds anywhere close to this mark. You file a complaint and the vendor claims that the speed claimed is “burstable” speed. He then explains that burstable speed is the max ever possible for your connection. So even if your connection touches that mark once in one month, the vendor would say that he has fulfilled his commitment.

I doubt if that “burstable” speed is reached even once a month. You would normally get max speeds of about 1/2 to 2/3 rd of the speed claimed by the vendor. 

TRAI, the regulatory body for broadband services in India, has stated that only speeds above 256 kbps can be claimed as broadband. Unfortunately it does not state the speed below which the speed should not drop.

If I have bought a connection for 512kbps and the vendor at anytime drops the speed below 400kbps, it should be a failure of service and the consumer need not pay. When you buy milk, we do not accept it if the milkman only delivers pure milk once a month and mixes 1 or two portions of water on all the other days.

It’s true that it is a tough thing to regulate the broadband vendors. The vendors will also never declare true stats on their own. But it will at least be a weapon in the hands of the consumers. As things stand today, broadband vendors claim 512 kbps, rarely deliver even half that speed and still get away with it.

Thinking of it, I have tried VSNL (Tata Indicom), Sify, Reliance and Iqara and none of these providers ever touched the burstable marks they claim.

Privatisation is good, healthy competition even better. But remove the regulator and the companies will gang up and take the customer for a ride. In case of mobile and broadband technology, there is a regulator (TRAI) but as happens so often with technology, the bureaucrats and govt officials don’t quite understand technology and mess up the rules and the law.

Sify is one of the broadband providers in India. Sify is just an example as many other broadband providers are offering similar packages. While some have MB limits per day, some have them per month.

Check out Sify’s Service Price List, especially the so called Unlimited packages. Sify’s idea of 150 MB limit per day in case of these “unlimited” packs is just ridiculous.

A speed of 256 kbps is realy just (256 / 8 = 32 KBps). Note the difference between ‘kb’ and ‘KB’. kb is kilo bits while KB is kilo bytes. 1 byte is made up of 8 bits. The reason why ISPs and broadband providers state numbers in kilo bits even when most software display download speeds in kilo bytes, is obviously to take advantage of the users ignorance of bits and bytes..
Anyway, coming back to our Sify example, at 32 KBps it will take me just 80 minutes to exhaust my 150 MBs. After that Sify will keep deducting one day for extra 25 MBs of usage.

8am to 10pm is the duration for this limit of 150MB. Fortunately at night there’s no such limit.

The calculation is
1 MB = 1024 KB
(1024 / 32) x 150 = 4800 seconds. i.e 80 minutes.

So technically if I start a download at 8am in the morning and it goes on till 10pm, I will use up my alloted 150 MB in just the first 80 min of the day. After that, in the rest of the day considering that I am using up 1 MB in 32 seconds, in 45600 seconds left in the day, I will use up 1425 MBs.

Sify deducts 1 day for every 25 MB of usage abov 150 MB. So by Sify’s logic, I would have used up 1 + 57 = 58 days worth of broadband connection in one day. How strange is that?

If this isn’t an unfair practice meant solely to take advantage of users ignorance of kbs and GBs, what is?

If you present this argument to the broadband company, they will ask you why in the world do you need these many MBs. The counter is that broadband can be useful and successful only if people can download as much as they want.. software, music, movies, games…

If I just have to check mails and do Google searches, I am much better off using a cheaper dialup.

These plans are tricking customers into thinking they have broadband when they really as just a little better off than dialup.

Is TRAI listening? If not, I hope at least the broadband customers are.

Ref:
http://www.sifybroadband.com/master_pricelist.php
http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone_tariff.htm