Isp

We Indians have been cribbing about ISP data caps for broadband called very insultingly as Fair Usage Policy (FUP), but I have heard few making a very good case about why this is a bad idea for the market. And how the ISP’s justifications of minority data hoggers is a case of 💩. But I just heard about a very good case being made against such data caps in the US broadband market.

Ah. Of course. Thanks. I will do just that … wtf??

Take a look at the following table showing the difference between similar ADSL broadband plans of BSNL and MTNL - the two public sector telecom companies of India. MTNL only operates in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai, while BSNL operates every else. Delhi and Mumbai are probably the two largest commercial cities of the country, but as the graph shows, MTNL believes that they should therefore pay twice as much as the rest of the country.

Seems that my blog is turning out to be a general gripe column. I don’t think I should be blamed for it though. Our country is full of technology companies who are only out to fleece people. When you use the services of a company who considers quality of customer service as a variable business decision, you know you have seen a company who is just after your money. After my awful experience with Sify, I decided to try out Tata Indicom.

After my terrible experience with Sify broadband early this year, I decided to stick to dialup - Reliance rconnect over FWP actually. But the idea of keeping a phone busy all day doesn’t appeal to me much even if the plan I have (Platinum) doesn’t have download caps or per minute call charges. So today I decided to bite the “broadband” bullet once again, and registered for a Tata Broadband connection.

Here is the letter I sent to Sify contact points in Delhi yesterday. It chronicles my Sify broadband experience here in Delhi. From: Sandip Bhattacharya To: Sanjay Bhandari , Puneet Sharma , anamika Cc: India Gii Subject: Official complaint - My sify experience and a request for refund Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:21:23 +0530 Mailer: Evolution 2.0.2 (2.0.2-3) I had applied for a sify connection exactly a week ago, and paid a cheque on the same day.

Inspite of my contempt for their loathsome Internet fleecing plans, I had to reluctantly sign up for a Sify cable internet plan today. Cost me a neat pile for installation and pre-payment for one month. The most painful part of this transition is going back to a NAT-ted private IP. This means no more gnomemeeting, no more yahoo voice/video chat, no more Bittorrent, no more gnutella/fasttrack/openft and other P2P networks, no more logging into my home machine when stranded outside my home office to retrieve a document I left at home.