Broad-Band

There is a news item which says that TRAI has lowered Broad-band rates by 3 to 70%. I invite all the members to express their view on it. Has anbody got any idea about what this 3 to 70% low tariff by Trai? How much we (the Data-one) users are going to benefit from it?sanjitcx

Originally posted by sanjitcx@Apr 22 2005, 07:52 PM
There is a news item which says that TRAI has lowered Broad-band rates by 3 to 70%. I invite all the members to express their view on it. Has anbody got any idea about what this 3 to 70% low tariff  by Trai? How much we (the Data-one) users are  going to benefit from it?

sanjitcx
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1.We may see a raising of the Data Transfer limit by BSNL after 30th June, if others lower their prices.

2. However, the providers already said that lowering of the charges would not make much difference in tariff becos according to them the major portion (I don't exactly remember but they probably said 80%) of the charges are due to infrastructure costs and rest for bandwidth prices. Providers would always try to recover their running cost incurred annually. As for infrastructure costs, they would try to recover them in a specified number of years and generally try to recover as much as possible from day 1. The advantage of BSNL is that most of their infrastructure is already in place while for others, who are investing heavily in infrastructure, it would not be so. BSNL can in fact reduce charges further if they want to and can massively increase their base with very low additional investment. But their charges are already the lowest in the industry and the fact that it has not resulted in a price war points to the fact that others cannot match them while at the same time recovering their investment. Since the competition is not that strong, BSNL does not have immediate need to lower prices, although they can, if they want to. BSNL's decision would depend on their internal data on the demand for their Dataone services. If they perceive that lowering charges by say, 10 to 20% would result in widening their base quicker and greater profit in the medium term, I think they would go for it to wean away the internet users who incur Rs.300 to 400 per month thru dial-up.

There is another factor to be considered for BSNL. DOT had directed BSNL to get at least a specified number of connections by this year or they would have to release their excess capacity to private players. That is why BSNL's urgency in providing Dataone to quickly. If they are far from their target, BSNL would definitely go for lowering the monthly rental to rope in internet users in the Rs.300-400 p.m. category.

The change in price is of domestic leased lines. but it is upon the service providers to decide whether to pass on the benefit to the customers. in the current scenario, BSNL can be expected to both increase data limit and reduce rental for DataOne. till then pray for the things to happen...