Bandwidth Fraud in India
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
, Posted by Keerthi Jeyaraj at 3:24 PM
Internet, Online medium, Bandwidth, Faster connectivity, New Age media, Always on, Unlimited and lightning speed bandwidth... These are the daily terms that we hear about our internet connection in our country, but these terms are no more than a marketing hype and an illusionary development that are circulated in our society. Recently i came to know about the bandwidth fraud that has been going for a very long time (since the internet adoption in India), which are very well formed by all the Internet Service Providers in India by using the ignorance of public. When these ISPs market about the bandwidth, they charge an 'x' amount on the 'y' bandwidth of speed, they call this speed in Kbps or Mbps, which is Kilo bits per second/Mega bits per second, but in general we are overlook the Kbps/Mbps with KBPS/MBPS (Kilo Bytes Per Second/Mega Bytes Per Second) due to their marketing strategies and we assume that we are on a high speed connection, which is not the original scenario. A high speed connection can not be termed to bits, it can only refer to Bytes. This has very well been debated in many of the broadband forums websites and even in wikipedia on Data rate units under the "Avoiding Confusions" section (http://bit.ly/dodwuS)
Unfortunately, in India the broadba(n)d providers have decided to take advantage of this confusion and ignorance of the society to make MAMOOTH PROFITS in their business, it applies to all the ISP in India. A broadband connection in the US with an unlimited bandwidth of 1 MBPS (Mega Byte Per Second) speed would cost between $55 - $60 a month, but in India an unlimited bandwidth of 1 Mbps (Mega bit per second) speed costs us between Rs.1700 - Rs.2000, a month which is almost $50. Our operators very intelligent to match the cost of the connection rather having a speed match. Taking the Indian scenario of the ISPs offering connections in "bits per second", we shouldn't be paying anything more than Rs.800 (This would also offer them a tremendous profit, inspite of all their costs to ARPANET, ICANN and their other operational costs.
Besides the broadband fraud on Home and Small Office segment, the enterprise users share a major pie on this victimized society by the ISPs, even an unlimited bandwidth of 2Mbps (Mega bit per second), which is actually 256 KBPS (Kilo Bytes Per Second) speed costs more than Rs. 275,000 per year and most ironical part of this is most of these users never get the committed speed of 2Mbps, it would be a miracle even if those users get the speed of 1 Mbps during upload and download data transfers. We are only getting very lesser speed that of the committed speed.
Wake up India, we are talking about a developed nation in 2020, a global power, high technology advanced soceity all those big dreams but why are we so ignorant on the basic infrastructures and giving our fellow providers to take advantage on us. Re-visit your technical understanding of bits and Bytes and call your ISP to enquire on the differences on Kbps/Mbps and KBPS/MBPS and ask them what you are getting from them as your broadband connection speed? Now you will get to know how technically you are being cheated by the ISPs. Speak up, write up, talk to u'r friends, family, u'r society or talk to Internet Service Providers Association of India at;
# 612-A, Chiranjiv Tower,
# 43, Nehru Place, New Delhi - 110 019.
Ph # (+91) - 11 - 2642 4001
Fax # (+91) - 11 - 4160 8472
Email: info@ispai.in
Not just a corrupt politician or a govt. officer pulls us down, even these kind of corrupt business conglomorates burry our future for their profit. Let's join hands to oppose it, let the media pitch into this, let the Television channels do an investigation on this crime.
Come On India...Let's work towards a better infrastructure for our nation with an affordable cost which will reach our aam aadmi...
Jai Hind...
Thank you for post and your blog. My friend showed me your blog and I have been reading it ever since.
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