Domain: trai.gov.in
Stories and comments across the archive that link to trai.gov.in.
Comments · 3
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Re:"Disdain"
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Re:Why caps can be good
True.
In India, it is 50GB a month at 16 Mbps speed for US$100 a month. That includes 50 free telephone calls (you do not get naked DSL, because their billing system expects telephone number. But hey its free).
Hell, the law states that providers of Cable TV, DTH and IPTV must provide channels on a-la-carte basis. No bundling of channels you don't want.
Ya, the providers cried that this will make them suffer losses, the government asked them to shut shop and pay exit tax (!) before they leave the country.1) No traffic shaping crap (disallowed under law).
2) No throttling (again disallowed under law: actually its a criminal offense to throttle a connection here, seems Vodafone tried it and a few thousand of their subscribers switched quietly to state provider. Vodafone got this law passed!)
3) No protocol blocking. I used BitTorrent to download Johnny Sokko & his Flying Robot series recently (its in open domain). My Steam powered games work great. Relic's Tales of Valor is able to use peer-to-peer patch downloading.
4) Clear bills detailing KB/MB/GB used per day.
5) VoIP (skype and other crap) allowed inherently, until this Government passed a law banning those. (highly unlikely considering the party will lose next elections if it does).
6) A State owned provider which is aggressive in pricing, servicing (i have two DSLs: state-owned provider at 2Mbps and a private one at 16Mbps, not because i use both, but because the state owned telephone i use gave me the DSL by default). This forces private operators to increase bandwidth and speed or die. And no, India does not provide bailouts of even state-owned companies.
Hell, the state owned provider is so aggressive in expansion, that it has linked almost all small towns with 2Mbps connections. In cities, it has offers daily for new subscribers and if you are moving out of private provider, they are extra smiling)
7) No minimum contract period. The private providers experimented with 2 year contracts, but soon realized that the state provider dropped contracts from its clause, and with it gained a HUGE business. So now, no provider has any contracts.
8) Reachable customer service: You talk to a real person every single damn time. No automated menus crap to complain. You get a ticket number and if its not resolved within 3 days (again set by law), you don't need to pay your bill until resolved.
9) Every year the telecom regulator publishes a report detailing each provider's uptime/downtime, performance, quality, customer satisfaction, etc. This is submitted to public at their website: http://www.trai.gov.in/Default.asp/The flip side?
1) Cities are HUGE markets here: stiff competition. In small towns & villages? Not so much. The state owned provider is the only provider. But they maintain their service quality at a high rate since their promotions depend directly on customer satisfcation in those villages.
2) Silent disconnection if bills not paid. No warning whatsoever. If you feel charges are expensive, complain and get a ticket number. If you don't have a ticket number and refuse to pay, DSL will be disconnected without warning.
3) Slow process of law. The law is quite advanced. In fact India was the first nation to regulate internet providers in 2000 with specific laws applicable to them: like digital contracts, etc.
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Broadband
In India even speeds of 256Kbps are classified as "broadband". So don't start packing those bags yet.