There were cases in the past where ISP's have blocked or throttled ports where there is high data usage and forced customers to subscribe to costlier plans which they claim don't have the same limitations. Till a while back, Internet was for the most part a luxury than a necessity and ISP's targeted people who used P2P/torrents to get more money. There were few other things that they did like trying to curb skype and whatsapp usage, but overall, that was the extent to which an ISP could exploit the situation at the time which they did exploit.
Consider the present pricing airtel uses. if you pay a certain amount you get a lower FUP than if you paid more. after FUP is crossed speeds can drop lower or not as low. This is a tiered offering.
I've heard of P2P throttling since 2005. Charging extra for whatsapp and skype is new. Given how fast those apps picked up i would say any throttling was low to non-existent.
Now that internet has more penetration and digital only businesses and services is on the rise, ISP's see more ways for exploitation. Basically, what I am trying to say is that even though Net neutrality did not formally exist, ISP's had limited scope for exploitation till now, but now there is scope for rampart exploitation and that is why this discussion on net neutrality has cropped up in every country. It is not like even US had formal net neutrality regulation till now right?
FCC in 2010 ruled in favour of NN and they did it again in 2015 :|
if you ask me its a bad example coming out of all places, the US. Only with dems in charge.
So if TRAI gets to rule on this i say 60-40 TRAI does what the FCC did twice (!) some win for the 'cartel' that would be.
Airtel tried to bring in plans in violation of net neutrality almost 6 months back and had to pull back after a public outcry. Others who were about to release their own plans also decided to wait. That is when I think ISPs started lobbying TRAI and when the net neutrality regulation became reality in US, the ISP's must have thought that pre-emptive strike is necessary to get rid of the notion of net neutrality though official channels before awareness spreads to enough people. Once the anti neutrality stance is accepted officially, people would have no choice in the matter.
We are living in country where things like price fixing and artificial shortage are common ploys and people have no choice. What makes you think that a official anti neutrality legislation would not be exploited. Do you think people would stop subscribing to internet because all ISP's decide to change extra for offering services that they use?
If you see avi's thread today TRAI admits there are no rules that prevent ISP's from charging for OTT services. So what do they want TRAI to do for them. If anything TRAI has taken this up because every time an ISP tries to do it something gets in the way and they have to discontinue. I've yet to put my finger on what that something is.
You are assuming that they don't have capacity and I don't buy that theory. What happens in most cases is that ISP's throttle their users so that they can oversell their capacity and make more money. This happens in India as well. From what I read somewhere, operators like Airtel and reliance have a lot of bandwidth and only 30% of their capacity is used in India. India is an exploitable market, so they do exploit and if they find more means of exploiting, they well.
Agree, oversell to balance out customer churn. Cannot guarantee customers will stick and not discontinue their subscription. I've also heard they have lots of bandwidth, but forcing more people into the same space does not lead to more customers. it allows you to to maintain profits. But better is to provide incentives that hold on to existing ones.
Assume the case where the office has the capacity required to do the work in expected 1 week timeline for the people that are coming in. So the guy is paying the 10k bribe to get the service as he would/should normally and the others are getting penalized because they are not paying the fee.
if they have the capacity then there is no need to charge extra. Govts are not for profit entities.
I have interacted with numerous govt offices. With cops at one point, when i'm explaining my case, the cop gets so many calls or interruptions that speaking for five minutes ended up taking a half hour. The only place that a bribe was required was the land registry office. Every where else i had to wait in line and be patient and was eventually attended to and usually on a cordial basis. if you follow procedure and every place has its own damn procedure the experience is positive albeit time consuming.
That is exactly what is going to happen on the internet too. If I lease 10 Gbps bandwidth for my business, The ISP won't be able to speed up the connection any more than what is possible usually on a best effort basis. I don't suddenly be able to send 30 Gbps just because I paid extra. I will still need to lease extra bandwidth in order to do that. I will not get better latency than what is possible on the network. What the ISP would do instead is penalize the entities that are not paying extra.
This is subject to what the going rate for 10Gbps is. If it turns out you need more then you get a faster connection. If they cannot provide you what you expect then you will go elsewhere to someone that can.
Please see what's happening around you in every area of business, you see this sort of business happening everywhere in India. If every ISP introduced plans where facebook is an extra on top of the internet connection. Do you think all the facebook users will stop using internet altogether? Don't forget the fact that these sort things are done in conjunction. Do you think that its only Airtel that lobbied TRAI. I would believe all the major ISPs in India would be involved and even if some didn't they would still definitely take advantage of the outcome. Do you think ISP's would even lobby for it in such a specific way if they don't intend to take full advantage of it?
But they are not charging extra for facebook , quite the contrary. As i said earlier if all you want is facebook then that is a viable option for them.
They are charging extra for messaging apps like whatsapp etc. if all you need is whatsapp then great. but if you need whatsapp AND browsing then you are paying more than you did before. Its been mentioned to use a whatsapp plan you need a 3g plan, that isn't true. If you dont have a 3g plan then base rates apply which are very high if you use browsing. But whatsapp should work at the rates specified when you paid for it.
I don't know what lobbying is going on other than to discourage introduction of policy that is detrimental or a step backward from the status quo. This means a holding operation. I would prefer policy that enables and incentivises ISPs to offer more. Only the govt can do that by reforming the present system.
I don't see a damn reason why ISP's would not be able to make money by creating service specific top-ups if its no longer a legal grey area. Internet is no longer a luxury. People have to go for it when they have no choice in the matter.
Implying more and more customers. How to handle them. If we start to treat telcos like utility companies or oil companies we will be shooting ourselves in the foot.
in a price sensitive market something will give if you increase costs over and above prevailing rates. Inflation has been tamed. But we don't see the benefits of lowered oil prices as they have been used to increase taxes on fuel. There is no consumption boom.
Ever been to a place where there is no regulation on auto/taxi fares? All the drivers would over-charge customers. Every driver will roughly ask for the same fare and nobody will come for less. They won't allow any other passing auto/taxi to pick up people and you would have no choice expect to pay what ever they ask for if you want to avail the service. If you have no other choice you will pay even if you don't like it.
They already over charge on a regular basis. but if there is choice ie supply you can always get the price you want. Its not unusual for me to ask at least 5 if not more before i settle on one. Most people give up at three attempts if they even try as much. In places where there is no choice ie less supply then you are a captive customer. This is when the over charging is guaranteed. and this is in bangalore.
Ever wondered why internet is so costly in India despite our ISPs have so much bandwidth that they also lease in other countries. That is exactly the reason.
I would like to see more basis for this have so much bandwidth assertion. You're not the only one to express this sentiment. i've heard it many times over. Never seen any proof to back it up.
