TRAI wants ISPs to limit number of internet subscribers to ensure speed
16 January, 2009
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has proposed regulations to ensure that internet service providers provide connections based only on the capacity of traffic they can carry.
TRAI is of the view that most ISPs compromise on the quality of their service by accommodating a higher number of subscribers, thus affecting broadband speeds and congesting networks.
The move comes as the regulator has been flooded with complaints that broadband/dial-up speeds are almost always lower than those promised by the operators, reports Economic Times.
This is a very important step and in the right direction.
The ISP's that promise broadband connection, do they actually deliver the bandwidhth promised?
Personally, Airtel has been a big disappointment. The speed is so slow, i wonder if it is any different from dial-up days. If you ask for wi-fi, the CS people tell you it doesn't work, not even in a 55sq.ft room!!
And, somehow, i get the same feedback on other ISP's as well. or may be some are good in metros while others fail in mini-metros or smaller towns.
So, ensuring ISP's deliver on promise is vital for internet growth and sustained yield on advertising.
Focusing only on market penetration is a lose-lose game.
Compromising quality of TRUE broadband experience vis-a-vis customer acquisition is the single most damaging thing we could do to our internet users.
This article raise one question in my mind. How eill it affect the growth of internet industry? If TRAI implement this thought then what will happen? Will Indian Online Industry get a boost or decline?
View 1: The motive behind this move is the increase the quality of service and provide high speed internet connection to every user. That will encourage more people to do more activities online. Due to the problem of high speed internet, there are many people who are willing to do different activities but are not able to do. Even I am using Reliance Wireless Datacard, but not able to do many activities like watching high definition streaming live video over that.
If TRAI successfully implement this step, the Indian Online Industry will get more user with more new uses and that will give a significant boost to Industry.
View 2: If TRAI implement this step, there are chance that more and more people will have to wait to get the access to the internet. Every year millions of new user are added having many new purposes. The ISP have to add more resources to get the higher capacity to serve the number of user which are added every year and that will not be an easy task. The conclusion is that the industry will be affected.
My suggestion in this regards for the ISPs that they should focus on the customer services rather than making the services cheap. They can formulate their marketing strategy as per the need of the customer and that can be the best solution.
Yogendra Oza
http://yogendraoza.blogspot.com
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