Consumer Blog

When truck overloads specified “Load Capacity”, traffic police ‘fines’ them. What about ISP(Internet Service Providers) and Telecom providers ? What happen to them when they take in more subscribers than their infrastructure capacities ?

“All lines in this route are busy, please try after some time!”, how many times you have heard that line ? Quite frustrating specially when you try to make calls from hospital, try to give your news of success in job interview, exams to your near and dear ones in far flung areas ?

This happen when ISPs, Telecom Companies provide enough links to that particular area. Are there any authority like traffic police to oversee traffic overload ? Or limiting number of channels ?

They ( ISPs and Telcom Companies), come out with schemes ‘Unlimited Download’, in their marketing promotions and we being Indians, we go fo those schemes and sign up for their services in bulk! But then we keep complaining we are not getting the bandwidth promised by ISP/Telcom Providers. These complaints had almost forced TRAI ( Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) to come out with plans to introduce norms hat would specify the ratio between the number of customers per unit bandwidth, which is known as contention ratio.

As per international practices, the average contention ratio for a home user package is 50:1 and that for business package is 20:1. TRAI has said that most ISPs  compromise on quality by accommodating a higher number of subscribers thereby bringing down broadband speeds and congesting networks. .. Source

ISPs/Telecom Companies providing internet connectivity are opposing it and they have come out with a policy “Fair Usage Policy”.  Now what is this Fair Usage Policy ?

They are

Airtel

Under the policy we have defined fair usage levels for unlimited data transfer plans and needless to mention, the usage levels set are very generous such that most customers will not be affected by the Fair Usage Policy.
On reaching the fair usage level, the plan speed would be rationalized by up to 50% for the rest of the monthly billing cycle. You would also be redirected to a page which will inform you that the speeds for the rest of the billing cycle month would be as per the Airtel’s Fair Usage Policy. – Airtel Source

Tata Indicom

Data transfer in excess of Fair Usage Limit as per the applicable tariff plan shall be treated as a violation of TCISL  FUP.
Upon such violation of FUP, TCISL shall contact the Customer suggesting for reduction in usage or upgrade to a higher bandwidth plan.
Despite the above, if the customer fails to upgrade to a high speed plan or continue to violate the TCISL FUP, TCISL reserves the right to suspend or terminate the customer’s account immediately without prejudice to other rights available to TCISL under these Terms and Conditions. -Tata Indicom Source

Why should customer suffer for the inadequate infrastructure by ISPs/Telecom Companies ? How is is logical to ask consumers to be “Fair” while they had committed unfair means “Marketing Glitz like Unlimited Download” to get subscribers signup ?

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