Last night i was following this discussion over at Broadbandforum.in. And it seems Airtel has put download caps on their supposedly unlimited connections. After you are finished with your quota, they throttle your speeds 😐 This is absolutely ridiculous! And before poeple try to defend by saying that speed caps are there internationally too, i say first match the kind of speeds they provide at the rates they provide it at, then talk about caps. Anyway, taken from a post from that thread:

By the way, Airtel told me that they will resolve my complaint by 1:30 PM today and I haven’t heard from them yet. Will keep this group posted on the responses I get from them.

In the meantime people, let’s get this to the mainstream media and tell them how Airtel is out to screw their own customers. They won’t even flinch till someone starts talking bad about them and till the shareholders take notice.

So here are some suggestions:

  • If you have a blog, then blog about this
  • Join the Facebook group (there may be some issues for now about the Join link but they’ll get fixed)
  • Write to all the India specific tech blogs and sites that you know of about this – Tech 2.0, Chip, TechTree, TechShout, PC World etc
  • Log complaints with customer care about this and tell them that the customers were not apprised. If they use the word “TRAI” ask them for the specifics – Article, clause, URL etc of the TRAI ruling if any – just don’t let them use the word TRAI and get away with it

Some points to remember:

  • We need “bandwidth huggers” who can get the best from the internet to spurn the economy in India by sharing the ideas that they find on the internet – if you can’t experience the best, how do you spread the word?
  • Take the example of Miro HD Video Player | Free internet tv and video podcast player. which promotes free Internet TV with an abundance of useful information for Indian audiences
  • Take the example of a household with 2-4 users of broadband on 1 Wifi connection who would use their unlimited connection for completely legitimate purposes and still hit the cap in 10-15 days
  • Take the example of people who download various Linux distros via torrents to distribute them to people who don’t want to pirate a Windows and yet get a working operating system like Ubuntu for free
  • Take the examples of Indian tech startups like Rajshri.com and In.com who are providing free video content on their sites to increase demand for their products and hence churn the economy

What Airtel is doing goes against all of the above. Yes, we might have alternatives but before that we need to know whether the culprit here is TRAI or Airtel or both. Till then, this needs an open debate before the TRAI implements something without consulting the consumers and sleeping with devils like Airtel.