What are the chances of MTNL 3G with 21.6 mbps speeds?

Hello.Reliance is providing 28 mbps speeds and TATA is providing 21.6 mbps speeds. Is there any news about MTNL planning to upgrade their speeds? Any signs, news, rumor, tenders or anything that suggests a future move about speed?And if they will upgrade, do you think they will take baby-steps like 7.2 mbps or will jump straight to 21.6 mbps and when do you think it MIGHT happen?Indeed MTNL wins the race when it comes to cheaper rates and truly unlimited plans. But it loses miserably when it comes to speed.

With such high speeds and current pricing, MTNL fears on loosing Triband customers who would switch to 3G dongles with a blink of an eye. (I have now switched to 3G full time and come down to 395 plan on Triband to be used as a back up.)I'm not defending them, but for MTNL, next logical step would be to bring their Triband connections up to speed with respect to current 3.6 HSDPA before attempting to increase HSDPA to HSPA+.But hey, it's MTNL. Anything can happen.

Basically zero. 3 reasons: 1. No one is giving out hardware capable of such speeds - they still only give out 3.6 & 7.2mbit/s capable dongles. Even the fastest phone I can think of OTOMH is only 10.2mbit/s. 2. In real life, none of those networks will achieve anywhere near those being advertised, even if you got the right dongle. A safe bet would be to take the advertised speed & divide by 3 - this is based on results of similar networks in Australia & Europe. 3. All wireless mediums (3g, wifi, lte, wimax - you name it) are crap, especially with any kind of network load, and it's worse if you're indoors, especially in India because of the way houses/apartments are built here (lots of radio wave absorption). MTNL has slower equipment mostly because, as a government player, it had the right to build out a 3g network ahead of the private players. I'd say if/when it upgrades it'll go to 21mbit/s equipment, but even that may not happen as BSNL & MTNL are already outlining their strategies for LTE.

Hello.

Reliance is providing 28 mbps speeds and TATA is providing 21.6 mbps speeds. Is there any news about MTNL planning to upgrade their speeds? Any signs, news, rumor, tenders or anything that suggests a future move about speed?

And if they will upgrade, do you think they will take baby-steps like 7.2 mbps or will jump straight to 21.6 mbps and when do you think it MIGHT happen?

Indeed MTNL wins the race when it comes to cheaper rates and truly unlimited plans. But it loses miserably when it comes to speed.

Even if they migrate to 21 or more mbps don't expect much speed upgrades. They are offering unlimited plans on 3G, BSNL's 3G unlimited turned out to be a near disaster wrt to speeds as people started to download 100's of GB's hence they withdrew it. You can only expect a better experience with LTE network as the spectrum is 4 times that of 3G which is a utter joke with just 5 mhz.
Better go for wired plans if possible...

With such high speeds and current pricing, MTNL fears on loosing Triband customers who would switch to 3G dongles with a blink of an eye. (I have now switched to 3G full time and come down to 395 plan on Triband to be used as a back up.)

I'm not defending them, but for MTNL, next logical step would be to bring their Triband connections up to speed with respect to current 3.6 HSDPA before attempting to increase HSDPA to HSPA+.

But hey, it's MTNL. Anything can happen.

i have shifted to mtnl 3G dongle and also disconnected the broadband service of mtnl landline
3g works fine for me since 1.5 months without any breaks.... so actuall no need of any backup

in case of some break in service ,,, i can always use other sims of vodafone and airtel for that period !! ofcourse with low speeds !!

With such high speeds and current pricing, MTNL fears on loosing Triband customers who would switch to 3G dongles with a blink of an eye. (I have now switched to 3G full time and come down to 395 plan on Triband to be used as a back up.)

I'm not defending them, but for MTNL, next logical step would be to bring their Triband connections up to speed with respect to current 3.6 HSDPA before attempting to increase HSDPA to HSPA+.

But hey, it's MTNL. Anything can happen.
If MTNL doesn't upgrade their 3G speeds in the hope of losing Triband customers then it will be very stupid on their part. Mobile phone spelled a kiss of death to copper line telephones and 3G already kissing wired-internet good bye. There is NO point beating a dead horse. By holding back technology in an attempt to keep the old triband alive would be shooting their selves in the feet. People will still move out of it. If they don't offer it, then people will move to some other company.

BTW, I once emailed to all the MTNL addresses I had suggesting them to do something about their Triband speeds as it is failing to 3G. I suggested to offer higher speeds, as with 3G we have portability and higher speeds and with Triband we have neither and still I pay more for my 750kbps connection! They never replied to my suggestion!


Basically zero. 3 reasons: 1. No one is giving out hardware capable of such speeds - they still only give out 3.6 & 7.2mbit/s capable dongles. Even the fastest phone I can think of OTOMH is only 10.2mbit/s.
There is hardware available in the market and MTNL can always use that. A 21.6 mbps can be found on ebay for as less as Rs. 2700


2. In real life, none of those networks will achieve anywhere near those being advertised, even if you got the right dongle. A safe bet would be to take the advertised speed & divide by 3 - this is based on results of similar networks in Australia & Europe. 3. All wireless mediums (3g, wifi, lte, wimax - you name it) are crap, especially with any kind of network load, and it's worse if you're indoors, especially in India because of the way houses/apartments are built here (lots of radio wave absorption).
This is a very VERY strong point. I checked these forums and I see you are right about your "divide by 3" policy. Even TATA and Reliance users are getting only a third of the advertized speeds, at best.


MTNL has slower equipment mostly because, as a government player, it had the right to build out a 3g network ahead of the private players. I'd say if/when it upgrades it'll go to 21mbit/s equipment, but even that may not happen as BSNL & MTNL are already outlining their strategies for LTE.
Sigh, then I guess we'd have to stick with the lower speeds then. The only silver lining there is, is that it is unlimited.


Even if they migrate to 21 or more mbps don't expect much speed upgrades. They are offering unlimited plans on 3G, BSNL's 3G unlimited turned out to be a near disaster wrt to speeds as people started to download 100's of GB's hence they withdrew it.
I hope MTNL does NOT meet the same fate!


You can only expect a better experience with LTE network as the spectrum is 4 times that of 3G which is a utter joke with just 5 mhz.
What's this?


Better go for wired plans if possible...
I'm planning to go 3G next month! I'm paying Rs. 750 for a 750kbps triband. It is better to go 3G as then too it is Rs 750 per month and with theoretical 3.6 mbps speeds. Even if I get what most people here are getting, then too it will be thrice as fast.

The only reason I'd go to wired if it is a fibre optics. It's not actually copper wire but you get the point. It is blazing fast! BSNL does provide a Fibre to home, but it costs an arm and a leg. The cheapest 1mbps costs Rs. 3000 and the fastest 100Mbps costs 84000 a month. I wonder why did they name it fibre to "home". Now which "home" pays 84K a month on internet?!

In England Virgin is already providing 100Mbps broadband and is testing 1.5Gbps services. You can read about it here and here.

Thank you all for your replies.

Mobile phone spelled a kiss of death to copper line telephones and 3G already kissing wired-internet good bye. There is NO point beating a dead horse. By holding back technology in an attempt to keep the old triband alive would be shooting their selves in the feet. People will still move out of it. If they don't offer it, then people will move to some other company.

This is a very VERY strong point. I checked these forums and I see you are right about your "divide by 3" policy. Even TATA and Reliance users are getting only a third of the advertized speeds, at best.


Don't even think of that. Neglecting or death of Wired BB will be a disaster for the country. As the no. of users goes up operators and users will start feeling the pinch in terms of speed.
"divide by 3" will soon turn into divide by 6,9 and so on...As more and more users come to 3G for a 'wired' BB alternative speeds will decrease. Always remember the golden rule....the speeds which they proclaim 21/28mbps and all that stuff are all SHARED. If there are two users downloading at constant rates speed will half. three simultaneous users means by 3 and so on.:no: Of course operators bring FUP's and throttling to control this but that can be only up to a limit.

What's this?

LTE is approx 2-2.5 more times efficient than 3G HSPA networks plus BWA operators have been awarded 20mhz of spectrum which is 4 times more in comparison to 3G operators. Hence the net advantage is 8-10 times. That means either 8-10 times more speed(equivalent fup) or more customers, choice is with operator.

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I'm planning to go 3G next month! I'm paying Rs. 750 for a 750kbps triband. It is better to go 3G as then too it is Rs 750 per month and with theoretical 3.6 mbps speeds. Even if I get what most people here are getting, then too it will be thrice as fast.

The only reason I'd go to wired if it is a fibre optics. It's not actually copper wire but you get the point. It is blazing fast! BSNL does provide a Fibre to home, but it costs an arm and a leg. The cheapest 1mbps costs Rs. 3000 and the fastest 100Mbps costs 84000 a month. I wonder why did they name it fibre to "home". Now which "home" pays 84K a month on internet?!


there are certain good wired plans which in ur city which have been discussed in IBF....like fivenet 10 mbps plan or even the all new You Broadband 10 mbps plans which i find rather good....:Boy Zip:

In England Virgin is already providing 100Mbps broadband and is testing 1.5Gbps services. You can read about it here and here.


wait for NBP...:smiley-cool06:

MTNL Mumbai is advertising 3.6 MBPS and I am constantly getting speed of 2.5 to 2.8 MBPS. So (Advt/3) logic is not working with MTNL .

Guys dnt compare 3G with Broadband s till dis date people are backward in subject to 3G and its possiblity Tell me can a 3G service suffice whole office working staff no it would be way more costly den der needs These broadband plans are ment for corporate places and not too much for household people but here people are buying their services . People are satisfied with these speeds . Can a cyber cafe work without a broadband connection no it cannot And guys wimax in india would bee a waste as people use far outated systems for connecting to internet And i do think MTNL would increase their 3g speeds till 7.2 mbps not more than that as it would be enough for monile devices. Guys in MTNL study the market demand and if 3G gave a very good response they mi8 raise the speeds

There is hardware available in the market and MTNL can always use that. A 21.6 mbps can be found on ebay for as less as Rs. 2700

I didn't say it wasn't available, I said nobody is doling them out by default. And at Rs2,700, how good do you think it's going to be? There's a little thing called quality that needs to be factored in as well, and I'd bet you Rs2,700 that this device would be utter rubbish (or not actually a 21mbit/s device).

This is a very VERY strong point. I checked these forums and I see you are right about your "divide by 3" policy. Even TATA and Reliance users are getting only a third of the advertized speeds, at best.

Exactly... if the same is true even on the networks in Europe and Australia where operators usually use halfway decent equipment, then in India it could be a whole different ball game because operators are required BY LAW to buy a certain percentage of Indian manufactured telecom equipment.

In my own business we're just taking that as money down the drain.

Sigh, then I guess we'd have to stick with the lower speeds then. The only silver lining there is, is that it is unlimited.

I hope MTNL does NOT meet the same fate!

We'll see.

The only reason I'd go to wired if it is a fibre optics. It's not actually copper wire but you get the point. It is blazing fast! BSNL does provide a Fibre to home, but it costs an arm and a leg. The cheapest 1mbps costs Rs. 3000 and the fastest 100Mbps costs 84000 a month. I wonder why did they name it fibre to "home". Now which "home" pays 84K a month on internet?!

That's been my point all along and that's why we have our pricing set very differently. BSNL assumes you're going to thrash the connection 24x7 even at 100mbit/s, but... really, who downloads 10+TB a month, and as such, why should we charge for it? (As we're deploying an FTTH network, I hope to see you as a customer soon)

I always thought I was a heavy down loader. But after some time, you have downloaded the whole world and done all hings you always wanted to download and then you are left with nothing much to download !!In 3 years I have just downloaded 200GB of data and that to just normal usages with sometimes spikes of downloads.

Don't even think of that. Neglecting or death of Wired BB will be a disaster for the country. As the no. of users goes up operators and users will start feeling the pinch in terms of speed.
"divide by 3" will soon turn into divide by 6,9 and so on...As more and more users come to 3G for a 'wired' BB alternative speeds will decrease. Always remember the golden rule....the speeds which they proclaim 21/28mbps and all that stuff are all SHARED. If there are two users downloading at constant rates speed will half. three simultaneous users means by 3 and so on.:no: Of course operators bring FUP's and throttling to control this but that can be only up to a limit.
Yes, but everybody wants to get the best. And as of now, the best is 3G for me. I'll pay less and get more. And by the time the above scenario materializes there should be Fibre Optic connections at reasonable costs to help us make a switch.


LTE is approx 2-2.5 more times efficient than 3G HSPA networks plus BWA operators have been awarded 20mhz of spectrum which is 4 times more in comparison to 3G operators. Hence the net advantage is 8-10 times. That means either 8-10 times more speed(equivalent fup) or more customers, choice is with operator.
Very nice.


there are certain good wired plans which in ur city which have been discussed in IBF....like fivenet 10 mbps plan or even the all new You Broadband 10 mbps plans which i find rather good....:Boy Zip:
I'm NOT aware of them. If they are truly unlimited (no FUP) and with cost ~1000 Rs then I would consider it. Can you please tell me that plans are those?


I didn't say it wasn't available, I said nobody is doling them out by default. And at Rs2,700, how good do you think it's going to be? There's a little thing called quality that needs to be factored in as well, and I'd bet you Rs2,700 that this device would be utter rubbish (or not actually a 21mbit/s device).
It was from Huawei.


I always thought I was a heavy down loader. But after some time, you have downloaded the whole world and done all hings you always wanted to download and then you are left with nothing much to download !!

In 3 years I have just downloaded 200GB of data and that to just normal usages with sometimes spikes of downloads.
I've downloaded that much in two months and I'm NOT kidding! And that is download ONLY, my uploads are usually 1.5x of how much I download.

Yes, but everybody wants to get the best. And as of now, the best is 3G for me. I'll pay less and get more. And by the time the above scenario materializes there should be Fibre Optic connections at reasonable costs to help us make a switch.

If you're thinking of MTNL, think again. Unfortunately their plans are not a whole lot better than BSNL's FTTH ones. If you're thinking of us, well... we're in a different market segment altogether. Everyone else is pretty much still committed to copper by beefing up their backends with new technologies but continuing to use the same infrastructure. Airtel's strategy looks to be to move from ADSL to VDSL and Hathway reckon they have implemented DOCSIS 3.0 in some areas. Many cablewalas use Ethernet so all going well, speed *shouldn't* be a problem on these anyway.

I'm NOT aware of them. If they are truly unlimited (no FUP) and with cost ~1000 Rs then I would consider it. Can you please tell me that plans are those?


Monsoon Offer Plan | Five Network Solution (India) Ltd and YOU Broadband & Cable India Limited: Leading High Speed Broadband Internet Service provider in India. Super Fast Connection.

It was from Huawei.


...sort of proving my point. The most I've seen out of this device is about 8 to 8.5mbit/s, outside, with line of sight to the tower (but how often do you do that?) - so even that sort of speed is hit & miss, and more often than not the modem is but one in a myriad of components that can affect network speed.

Sure, for the price it's nothing to complain about, but the rule of (advertised speed / 3) very much applies here, and in many cases you're not really going to notice the difference between being on say a 3.6 or 7.2mbit/s network versus a 14 or 21mbit/s network unless you are actually downloading a large file or streaming video, which 3G is, shall we say, less than ideal for (keeping in mind that it's a 10+ year old standard)...

It's kind of like the difference between -20 and -15 in temperature - without actually measuring it, it's very, very hard to tell.

I've downloaded that much in two months and I'm NOT kidding! And that is download ONLY, my uploads are usually 1.5x of how much I download.

You seem like the kind of user I've been talking about for the last couple of years (this is a good thing).

mgcarley said:

If you're thinking of MTNL, think again. Unfortunately their plans are not a whole lot better than BSNL's FTTH ones. If you're thinking of us, well... we're in a different market segment altogether. Everyone else is pretty much still committed to copper by beefing up their backends with new technologies but continuing to use the same infrastructure. Airtel's strategy looks to be to move from ADSL to VDSL and Hathway reckon they have implemented DOCSIS 3.0 in some areas. Many cablewalas use Ethernet so all going well, speed *shouldn't* be a problem on these anyway.

Click to expand...

It is because most (not all) still don't understand why would anybody need so much speed. For most even 1 Mbps is 'pretty awesome' speed! And since these companies already have invested a lot in this old technology, they cannot afford to change everything. They will squeeze every last drop and as long as they have clients and are making moolah they would not care to change.

mgcarley said:

Monsoon Offer Plan | Five Network Solution (India) Ltd and YOU Broadband & Cable India Limited: Leading High Speed Broadband Internet Service provider in India. Super Fast Connection.
The second link took a proxy to work. With Reliance this wasn't a problem but with triband I have to use proxy pretty often. Anyways, I checked all that and wasn't impressed. I can be a little hard to please!

mgcarley said:

You seem like the kind of user I've been talking about for the last couple of years (this is a good thing).

Click to expand...

I hope WITHOUT a touch of sarcasm! My downloads usually range between 75-150 GB a month, although my uploads can shoot several times higher than that at times. I wonder how do you find this a good thing. Usually service providers hate clients like me! Or maybe I didn't get the sarcasm due to what you put in between the brackets!

Click to expand...

Monsoon Offer Plan | Five Network Solution (India) Ltd and YOU Broadband & Cable India Limited: Leading High Speed Broadband Internet Service provider in India. Super Fast Connection.
The second link took a proxy to work. With Reliance this wasn't a problem but with triband I have to use proxy pretty often. Anyways, I checked all that and wasn't impressed. I can be a little hard to please!

I hope WITHOUT a touch of sarcasm! My downloads usually range between 75-150 GB a month, although my uploads can shoot several times higher than that at times. I wonder how do you find this a good thing. Usually service providers hate clients like me! Or maybe I didn't get the sarcasm due to what you put in between the brackets!

I need to throw some light on 3G............ok seeing your requirements i would never refer u wireless plans...75-150GB on 3G can choke the hell out of network. And 1.5times of upload, don't even expect 15% of that amount in wireless.:smiley-cool06:

To put in more simpler manner as a layman, a 3.6 mbps BTS/tower can maximum disburse 1-1.2GB per hour.(considering 100% efficiency-highly unlikely;considering considering no voice calls are made to/from the BTS):tongue1:. Now you can get all the 1GB-1.2GB per hour if you are the only customer in the BTS region(impossible). Hence if i consider your usage to avg.around 100GB pm, you have to be allocated approx. 100 hours from the BTS. There are just 720 hours in a month hence the BTS can accommodate max. 7-8-9 customers like 'you' and no one else:meeting:. If more come to ur BTS speed drops in that proportion.

In a city like Mumbai where crores live even with 1000BTS do you expect such a scenario...:bomb: