A Report on efforts to raise awareness about ISP's Fair Usage Policies (FUP)

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Gaurish

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Hi,

Some good people at broadbandforum are trying to raise awareness against Fair Usage Policy(read: Fcuk You Policy) which a lame way of selling broadband connections with data caps/limits as "Unlimited".Innocent consumers fall for these marketing gimmicks. Example: http://www.techenclave.com/broadband-forum/tired-being-screwed-airtel-again-again-174512.html

These people have regularly tried to register protests by using Social Media. some example of prior efforts[1][2]. now they are trying to reach to MainStream media to get wider audience know why Internet in our countries's Internet is so slow and costly. As they say, internet should be reach within common man, not as a luxury

Now, Efforts are on getting a piece in Times of India, for which TOI has asked few questions which we have to respond. the response is be written through a collaborative effort on Google Docs. you can choose voice your thoughts or simple reading & forwarding the link to document through Email,FaceBook,Twitter would create awareness.

I promise its quite informative read, if you care about State of Internet in India. Its bit detailed, so grab a cup of coffee and start reading:D

Link: Our Response to Airtel's Fair Usage Policy
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

Frankly speaking, it's nothing new ... Once they got customers, they play such kind of games.

Even BSNL is not offering any affordable unlimited plan beyond 512kbps
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

One must be mention things like how video conferencing and simple things like even the youtubes dont work as they should with the silly basic plans we have.

Comparisons with the other countries and gaping differences will help.
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

kekerode said:
Frankly speaking, it's nothing new ... Once they got customers, they play such kind of games.

Even BSNL is not offering any affordable unlimited plan beyond 512kbps
Click to expand...

True,This isn't specifically about Airtel's fair usage policies. It's about FUPs in general.

Airtel is just a scapegoat because they are the leader in screwing everyone.

BSNL's pricing and FUPs are very similar but unlike Airtel, BSNL does *not* have it's own international gateways. - I am quoting mgcarley here

Spacescreamer said:
One must be mention things like how video conferencing and simple things like even the youtubes dont work as they should with the silly basic plans we have.

Comparisons with the other countries and gaping differences will help.
Click to expand...

I think things like skype,youtube is already mentioned
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

nah i meant while any suggestion/complaints one should mention these services.

Not trying to be smart and covering up for the insatiable hunger for downloading BW, there are services which can come in handy for everybody.

These utility services/sites are def gonna work on a more satisfactory level if the basic speed is bumped up to something which is recommended.
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

Gaurish said:
As they say, internet should be reach within common man, not as a luxury
Click to expand...
The problem is how does one 'make' this case :huh:

kekerode said:
Even BSNL is not offering any affordable unlimited plan beyond 512kbps
Click to expand...
And what does that tell you ?

If the govt, that has the bulk of the intl lines cannot bring the price down.

So long as Karunanidhi controls the telecom portfolio, we are not going to see any improvements :(

All of India's 'present' telcom woes can be placed in his lap.
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

^ correct. Until Govt provide better competitive plans, I m not expecting anything good from private sector
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

Airtel was the first to start fup but now allmost 90% isp doing it and please atleast in ncr bsnl also have same plans as airtel and same fup limits.
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

seriously is this gonna work at all unless airtell sees a spike in disconnection they wont do jack about it but maybe bad publicit will help :P if the article gets publishd in TOI
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

blr_p said:
If the govt, that has the bulk of the intl lines cannot bring the price down.
Click to expand...

I thought BSNL bought bandwidth from Airtel , Tata and Reliance
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

I guess MTNL is the only broadband provider with absolutely no FUP on unlimited plans. *touchwood* :)

Edit: Add reliance broadband too (edited after reading the article)
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

manu1991 said:
I thought BSNL bought bandwidth from Airtel , Tata and Reliance
Click to expand...
They might do in some places but overall they control the most intl. lines.
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

Gaurish said:
As they say, internet should be reach within common man, not as a luxury
Click to expand...
Then the government should provide free internet through BSNL. Why harass a private firm over their policies.

I am all in favor of a campaign which protects dumb users from falling prey to the marketing gimmicks of "unlimited with a limit", but dont expect a private firm to give you unlimited internet for cheap.
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

The problem is how does one 'make' this case
Click to expand...

Well, if we start by saying that AIRTEL is hindering the nation's development. Cuz interenet, is information. Cheap means within more people's grasp. And we all know information is POWER put quite simply today.
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

They might do in some places but overall they control the most intl. lines.
Click to expand...

LOL BSNL has nothing in its control.

All international IP bandwidth is controlled by Airtel (50-60%), Reliance(10-20) , Tata (10-20%)

As of international voice most of it is with TATA :P
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

People should read the google docs completely. The reason for the high charges seem to be a supposedly non profit private organisation NIXI which charges more than 5 lacs a month in interconnect fees compared to about 5 lacs a year in other countries. If isp's do not join this nixi, then for connecting to another isp in india they have to go the long way instead of the shortcut through nixi, which drives up the cost.

So maybe nixi should be axed in the first place by making another new interconnect company that will charge a flat fee of say 6-10 lacs per year instead of a month.

Another point is can the isp's which justify the FUP policy have any proof that a small amount of people downloading and saturating their own phone lines (since most of internet in india is adsl, there is no way we can saturate another persons line) , are actually making such a difference to their networks that they have to resort to fup's? That means they are using extremely bad network management policies or products or have no bandwidth capacity and are resorting to blaming the consumer for their service deficiencies. Most isp's have a contention ratio of about 20:1. Can they prove that 1 person downloading continuously for a month at a fixed speed and fixed bandwidth allocated to him makes any difference to the other 19 people who may or may not be downloading data? Have they published any findings in a report yet if they have done so?

Edit: @Gaurish, can you ask the google docs owner to add the 2nd paragraph onwards of my post to their document? (excluding this line). The google doc seems uneditable, and there seems no way to add something to that doc there.
 
Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

Supra said:
LOL BSNL has nothing in its control.
All international IP bandwidth is controlled by Airtel (50-60%), Reliance(10-20) , Tata (10-20%)
As of international voice most of it is with TATA :P
Click to expand...
I'm talking about the govt, BSNL is part of it.

Now, you want to tell me private players have more ?

BSNL/MTNL/VSNL must have more customers than all these private players put together just through the sheer reach they have in the country and i ain't talking voice.
 
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Re: Efforts Raising awareness against Airtel Fcuk You Policy(FUP)

Contrary to what others might think; Govt can't sell broadband for free or at cheap rates. if they try to do, they would go out of business in no time. the reason is BSNL/MTNL don't get to decide their own pricing. BSNL only own Last Mile connectivity infrastructure but still need bandwidth. so they have to buy international bandwidth in bulk from private players(tata, reliance & Bharti). that is the only way for all ISPs in this country to get international connectivity, buy from this greedy trio.

Further that bandwidth is resold to its customers. so if BSNL has to payed steep pricing upfront, the end user pricing would include that plus its own operating costs.

Sadly, these corporate robbers practically decide internet prices and growth for entire country. So Govt has to step in here, do some drastic policy reforms. Corruption will ensure this won't happen on its own.But If enough voices are raised against this, there is some hope

Because people badly need better data facilities for panchayats, government schools, increasing productivity and efficiency.

@6pack

might be a bit too late for it as the draft is finalized but I have post your thoughts, on their forum => Airtel Broadband Fair Usage Policy FAIL #airtelsucks
 
When you talk about the good of the common man, I assume that you are talking about the knowledge sharing aspect of the internet. I guess the gram panchayat wants to get more information to increase their agricultural productivity and not sit in a quorum to watch streaming porn. A few GBs a month is enough for information gathering.

The whole idea behind FUP is that they can sell internet connection to more subscribers and ensure bare minimum experience to them. It can happen by throttling the leechers. So I guess you should root for the FUP plans and request for changing the title of the thread.
 
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