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Indian Telecom giant, Bharti Telecom (Airtel) has announced its plans to offer 8Mbps broadband internet for business as well as home users in selected Indian cities. The high speed broadband will be rolled-out within the next three weeks in Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, and Delhi. Subsequently, it will be launched in Mumbai and Hyderabad. Tariff plans and offerings are yet to be worked out, but roughly it should cost you around Rs. 2000 – 10000 depending upon your bandwidth requirement.
As most users won’t be needing 8Mbps speed constantly, Airtel has introduced a new "on-demand" feature which will lets you vary your broadband speed. This means that the end-user will be able to switch on 8Mbps whenever they need it, say when watching a long online video or downloading something over P2P? With 8Mbps speed, Airtel’s Broadband Service is also going IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) ready.
Last year, it was BSNL who took the initiative of taking broadband internet access to a new level by going 2Mbps. Now, it’s Airtel with 8Mbps. I’m pretty much positive that other ISPs in India will follow Airtel’s initiative.
I’m not certain, if Airtel will impose any bandwidth caps on their 8Mbps broadband plan, just like how BSNL did when they rolled-out 2Mbps broadband last year. I don’t think 8Mbps is going do any transformation to the end-user, unless ISPs here in India decide to lift bandwidth caps and provide unlimited access. For instance, BSNL still doesn’t have a 2Mbps broadband tariff with unlimited bandwidth. What’s the point in having such broadband connection, if you don’t get to enjoy what you pay for?
[Via: Hindu]
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wrote, on October 12th, 2007
i ve read somewhere that the starting plan will be around for Rs 3k/month for downloads upto 7-8 GB’s of data…
again its too costly for normal users
wrote, on October 12th, 2007
This will be useful for medium level softwares companies, but definitely not for home users.
wrote, on October 12th, 2007
Shashank: Right, but then again, it all depends upon how much you download. I would sure move to Airtel, if they could offer 8Mbps unlimited for Rs. 3K/month
wrote, on October 12th, 2007
But Thilak, ISPs aren’t doing social service. They’re looking for profit. Serving unlimited caps for every plan wouldn’t be a good decision from a company’s standpoint.
I use BSNL’s unlimted internet (for Rs.900/m) and I think the service sucks because they’re providing this service with their worst infrastructure and other plans get good servers and all. Its all in the game.
About 8MBPS, I wish they launched 3G everywhere in India before doing this because in our place, we won’t get. I’m a little happy that Vodafone came here. Who knows ? Maybe they’ll take the initiative to bring the technology here.
wrote, on October 12th, 2007
Sreejith: If you compare India with any other country like US or Australia, you would probably roll on floor being jealous. And yeah, I really hope Vodafone brings 3G in India. As a consumer, I’m too much worried about my standpoint than anybody else’s
wrote, on October 12th, 2007
8Mbps unlimited for Rs. 3K/month is a great idea but then i am paying Rs 1K+ for 256Kbps speed..just compare with that …
And yes Vodafone needs to do something…no great offer from them till now..
wrote, on October 12th, 2007
Comparing other service providers, the technologies used by Airtel is High-Tech. Even though BSNL provides more than airtel, the service given by Airtel cannot be competed with any service providers in India.
Airtel is best in all aspects like Mobile, broadband etc. Many of my friends where switching to Vodaphone but Airtel is no1 in India .
wrote, on October 12th, 2007
Sankaranand: Well, I’m a happy Airtel customer, so my views maybe biased. In the past, I’ve used Spice, and Vodafone (both suck a lot, at least interms of technology). The only complaint I’m having with Airtel is that their postpaid plans don’t match with Prepaid schemes. I mean… for internet access on my Airtel post paid, I have to shell-out 399 bucks per month, but I only get 100MB worth of download.
On the other hand, prepaid users get the flexibility of having internet access for just 20 bucks per day (renewable each day) (and yeah, unlimited download)