Fair/Forced Usage Policy??
Posted on 20. Mar, 2009 by Nikhil in Technical
Most of us who use the Internet, have some time or the other, have done some kind of download or upload in the actual sense, very few people realize that each word they speak, image they see, or the text message they send via the Internet is accounted as data. Upload or download.
So? What is the big deal? Why is Nikhil coming up with obscure topics?
I would not put it as an obscure topic outright, as it concerns almost everybody who uses Internet & Technology, with what we are going to discuss further, people who have high moral values, will feel cheated, those who understand will get relieved, and those who want to argue are most welcome, I can take you to the culprits right away 
.
The scope of our discussion is the word unlimited, when (all the moralists, this goes for you) ever you hear the word unlimited, what does it make u feel?
Happy? Content? Value for Money? Precisely, most people attach the word unlimited with a happy sequence, never ending happiness. So what happens when the same people who say unlimited, actually mean, limited to a point?
Lets take an example, we goto Rajdhani Thali Restaurant (this is for example purpose only, caution, please do not enact the following sequence) and we start eating an unlimited Thali, for which we are ready to pay a decent amount of money, but, as soon as you eat 30 chapatis the manager says, your unlimited account is over. How would that feel? Specially if you have the capacity to eat 60 chapati’s?
Well, my first instance with unlimited fiasco came when I was a student in Bangalore, a well known telephone company promised unlimited sms’s for a particular sim card plan, well, we were in college, we were jobless, and we decided to see how much does actually unlimited meant.
At a point, we crossed 5000 SMS’s from a particular cell phone in a month, and then! Lo! we were charged 50 Ps. per sms, what is the point?
Nothing is unlimited, other than stealing neta’s pocket holes. In fact, the telephone company had the gall to tell us that we came in high user group. We!, jobless, engineering students, who wanted to expose the companies dirty policies, were penalized. LOL!
I would not blame them.
So, what is happening in India now, that, I had to recall this incident?
February 2009, saw the advent of a new policy by the ISP’s, Internet Service Providers. I will now outline the policy in points below, as each company has its own policy and implementation rules. As usual, there is no standard formula.
Also, the system which they are trying to ape from the west is apparently badly aped, and we don’t even match the aping standards.
1. Under the guise of Broadband Fair Usage, our ISP’s will now restrict all the unlimited accounts at a certain point. This will be known as the Fair Usage Policy (FUP)
2. The various ways in which companies will restrict their accounts are to be read in the fine print under the Unlimited word, which will be followed by FUP.
3. Through its FUP, Airtel, for instance, has “defined fair usage levels for unlimited data transfer plans” and “on reaching the fair usage level, the plan speed would be rationalized by up to 50% for the rest of the monthly billing cycle”. I will come back to this point again, as I have more to speak on this.
4. For Tata, after the billing cycle is over, it informs subscribers that the predefined limit has been hit and they must move to a higher plan or the service would be terminated.
5. BSNL, the government owned ISP has not declared any FUP as yet, but it does not have a high speed unlimited as yet which is affordable to the common man, so we shall not be discussing that.
6. They want to restrict all the Bit Torrent traffic, which can be detrimental to Linux users, as they cant download the distro’s.
This policy is coming into effect slowly but steadily by almost all the ISP’s so either we accept it or demand the reason.
Now, I will proceed to give the arguments given by the companies who want to implement the detrimental FUP.
Most of the companies, have the same parrot like arguments which are unimaginative and profiteering in nature, I find a grain of truth in all of them, but I am opposed to certain practices which might be followed if we are not alert.
Consider this to be my two bits for Jaago Grahak Andolan.
The best and the most hard hitting argument which an ISP can give is uneven distribution of bandwidth. There are people and there are people, the companies say, under the FUP, they want to protect the decent guys from the b/w hoggers. As 99% of people who use Internet, dont misuse it to an extent wherein the company has to take an action.
Lets take another e.g., you know a certain guy in the building who has 2 good robust PC’s at home, and knows enough Technology, by which he uses the same account to download movies, porn, music day and night, there by hogging all the b/w, thus your connection is perpetually slow and you hate your ISP. Now when the FUP is implemented, and the guys wings are cut, you will be the happiest guy, as you have a decent connection now.
The second reason might make the likes of Shah Rukh Khan Happy with a capital H, as, the ISP’s proclaim that by FUP, they will be able to control the piracy makers, as they are the basic source of trouble, first use too much b/w and then cut back on sales of original DVD’s for music/movies etc. KUDOS for this thought!
Atleast, there are some ways by which the companies think of giving good service, third and the most widely used argument by the ISP’s is that they are just aping the west as usual, saying its an international trend, but I know of at least 1 company in UK which does NOT implement FUP.
They throw around heavyweight names like AT&T, Verizon, BT, Vodafone, Orange, but one thing which I would like to remind our desi ISP’s is that these guys give amazing speeds. Which you guys can not match up in the next 5 years, apart from Reliance, who is coming up with some very decent speeds, and neither did these guys actually read the fine print for FUP, which, in some countries and by some companies, the limit for download is as high as 50GB, not 5 or 10, we are talking of good 50GB high speed Internet, which I think would satisfy any decent user (we are trying to stop the indecent ones only remember??).
Now, the issues I feel would be raised by any level headed guy towards these companies,
1. Would you like to be held on ransom by some XYZ company and be forced to move to a higher cost plan?
2. Does everybody know, that the government subscribed broadband connection is only called broadband if and only if the connection speed is 256 Kbps? So now the point no. 3 which i mentioned earlier comes into picture, if you are in a basic 256 Kbps unlimited plan and you cross the FUP, and your ISP decides to halve your speed, would you technically still be a Broadband user? although you are still paying for a Broadband connection?
I agree the cap is a good idea, but it should be implemented intelligently, and not in a regressive way, because, I too want the value for MY money, and I don’t like Forced Usage Policy!
Also, if you are not selling unlimited, then why boast about it?? Implement the Australian Policy, I think even those villagers have more sense of fairness, we pray our Internet does not go our politics way.
19 Comments
boneless
20. Mar, 2009
i am quiet surprised that u left out bsnl and talk about it in such a degrading manner…’bsnl dosent have higher plan’???? who said that? bsnl has a 512kbpsul for just 1350. can u beat that? airtel’s 512kbps ul cost 1499 and with taxes its around 1700..bsnl has 2mbps with night ul for just 500 can u beat that?..besides bsnl cannot implement the fup so easily because bsnl is government owned isp which means its for the welfare of the people rather to fill their own pockets…and u say relaince gives decent speed???? go visit some broadband forums and read the review about reliance.
Nikhil
20. Mar, 2009
I left out BSNL precisely because of the reasons you said,
1. it is the government outfit
2. it has high end plans, which are not affordable by the common man.
3. they do not give unlimited in high end plans. the real good plans are for the corporate sector. which cost you around Rs. 7000/- a month.
4. I found that in private players, reliance came almost 70% decent in its dealings. no hard feelings against anybody.
Frikki
20. Mar, 2009
@boneless:
I find it utterly naive of you to claim that BSNL is not there to make money, solely because they are government owned. You even claim it is there for the welfare of the people. The Indian government offers Internet because it stimulates the economy very quickly. For the same reason they have abandoned rural area development for decades, simply because there is no short term economic value in such. It is not because they care so much about your welfare. If the government did, you wouldn’t find the streets crowded with poor children, who doesn’t even get an education, and are forced in to a lifestyle of begging and humiliation. In the western part of the world — for the most — these “standards” were left 100 years ago, as it was realized that education benefits the state, the economy, and the peoples. Furthermore, Nikhil is totally right in his points, which mainly talk about “unlimited” and hidden force of upgrade. And it is still amazing, how the ISPs, including BSNL, rip people off by having sky-high prices for unstable low-bandwidth and far from “unlimited” traffic. E.g., in Denmark — and many other countries — you pay 1800 Rs. for 20Mb broadband w/ truely unlimited traffic. Now time to dig them bones, Mr. Boneless.
Just my $0.02
P.S.: Great article!!!
Sujeet Sawant
20. Mar, 2009
BSNL EVDO has got shared IP which prevents browsing and downloading from a lot of sites.The main problem is the upload speed.You can upload only at 5 KB/sec. also one more thing about Reliance EVDO, if you are not in their netconnect broadband coverage area then the software will automatically convert your connection to their existing 1X network without any call or data loss. So currently my vote is for Reliance EVDO
Tarun
20. Mar, 2009
@Boneless…
The only thing you’re successful in doing is detract from the crux of the article.
All Nikhil is trying to do is to correctly point out the marketing fud to people but it seems you either belong to the group that sells these plans and hence have no interest in this sort of info being promoted or have bought into the marketing! hah!
@Nikhil,
Fantastic article
boneless
21. Mar, 2009
goodness me wooof look at u people go at me.. i been using bsnl for more than 3yrs and never had a down time just because u had a bad experience with bsnl dosent mean that it gives the same kind of serive throught out the country..and you think i am some sort of sale executive??? well i am not i have used tata and realciance and beleive me they both were nightmare.
boneless
21. Mar, 2009
@Tarun
i know this sihtty information and its all over the internet you fools dont realize what u are into.have you bothered to even read the terms of contract when you have signed??? and i am talking about the welfare of india only in terms of ‘broad band’…look at the promotional schemes of bsnl atleast they want increase broadband penetration and compete globaly…do the private players bother about competeing globally??/ ofcourse they do that is why they introduced the Fair usage siht..ha ha
Anand
21. Mar, 2009
@Boneless
Dude.. u look stuck with bsnl
Nikhil
21. Mar, 2009
@boneless:
Looks like you never understood what I have written,
1. I have not written anything against BSNL, O Great BSNL lover,
2. When you mentioned bsnl, do you know that it does not indulge in FUP? and it has true unlimited? so there was no point discussing them.
3. Problem is, people who want unlimited HIGH SPEED internet cannot afford the better plans from BSNL, as the commercial plans are really costly, and they are the only ones who give actual speed. not ur paltry 512kbps.. I am talking of 2Mbps speeds.
so i think you should stop criticizing just for arguments sake, and try to reread..
Frikki
21. Mar, 2009
@ALL:
Its been a year since I spend around 3 months in India. The company I was working in had connections from pretty much all the suppliers, because the stability was so poor, that if one broke down we could MAYBE rely on another being up. Now, point is: It is too expensive and too unreliable. And there is NO “Unlimited”. Its bull and lousy marketing jargon. Web hosting companies follow the same trend. So, all in all, you have to read the small print in terms and conditions. If the companies — be it private or government owned — would stick with their advertising promises, they wouldn’t have to make these T&Cs. But the world is a vampire — and you’re the victim! Soon Boneless will also be bloodless.
Omkar
21. Mar, 2009
Nice Article….
Saurabh
21. Mar, 2009
Really nice article Nikhil. Many people are unaware of the fact that a connection is called Broadband only when the speed is at least 256kbps. I totally agree with your thoughts.
This is the marketing trick of companies, by saying “Unlimited”, they actually mean “Extended Limit”. And people actually think it is unlimited just because they (decent user) don’t reach that “Extended Limit”. I had Sify 64 kbps (so called Broadband) “Night Unlimited” plan. Now this is Unlimited for me because you know when you download with 64 kbps, it actually downloads at 1/8th of the speed, i.e. 8 kbps. At this great speed if I keep my machine on and download whole night for all 30 nights of the months then also I won’t exceed the “Extended Limit”. (I was in that plan just because it was cheapest and Sify allowed my machine to get connected in LAN with lightning speed of 100 MBps)
boneless
21. Mar, 2009
ok pal just because bsnl hasnt introduced fup my love for it has increased and i was talking only in the context of home users
Anilavo
22. Mar, 2009
Very well written added a lot of value thank you
Imti
22. Mar, 2009
I concur! The FUP as with AT&T and COMCAST in the USofA applies beyond 50gig when one continues the trend for two consecutive months. There’s no automatic termination or anything – the user gets a word of caution in his monthly statement. Following which they monitor your connection, if the trend continues – Next would be two follow up calls from their customer service executive who take it from there.
That said, my roomie has a rapidshare premium account and he consumes the full permissible download (2.6 gig per day if I am right) everyday (trust me)… We havent got any FUP advice as yet.
P.S: We are 4 such ppl with 4Tb external HD’s downloading shit all the time.. NIKKI – This article makes sense to me!!
Rajath
22. Mar, 2009
This is a good article. I never knew about FUP. Though one of my friend who uses the internet to download a lots of stuffs recently received a mail from his ISP(Airtel) stating that after 40 GB of download the speed gets reduced and all…we were pretty shocke dto hear that, as the connection type was “Unlimited”. This article did help me in figuring out why that is so.
BTW could we go to consumer court against this? or could we the users do something about this limiting by the ISPs?
Nikhil
23. Mar, 2009
@Imti: I know of the US policies, but with the pathetic state of speeds in India, I thought they would have the shame of not applying FUP. Alas they are shameless.
@Rajath: I actually am not aware of the legal course of action, since they write in fine print that company T&C can be changed anytime, so I think legal course of action will not be feasible. Unless somebody takes up a Public Interest Litigation.
Bharatwaj
30. Mar, 2009
@Nikhil…
I heard from my borther-in-law who is a lawyer btw, that a PIL is in the works against this and also a consumer fraud blah-blah-legal-jargon-something suit that will be filed soon regarding this. It seems that Bharti has left quite a few big legal loopholes in their T&C and this suit is going to be a nightmare for them. No comment about reliance n tata. But Bharti-Airtel is definitely in for a ride.
According to him, it is a straightforward case of consumer-malpractice-again-some-legal-blah-blah-which-i-dont-understand…..
He used to work under the attorney general before he started his own practice. //An SC lawyer
Madhu Ranjan
31. Mar, 2009
Hi Nikhil, Interesting article. Have a few thoughts here:
1. Earlier when we were all on good old frame relay networks though the speeds were exceptionally slow, there was a much easier way to monitor upper limits like PIR / and a guaranteed limit of CIR. Infact, you won’t believe it , this is still the in thing in many developed countries and India is way ahead in this field
( though not as much as US right now is!).
2. Someone has spoken about BSNL not working often. I have had these problems and one of the standard things that I keep changing are the DNS server IPs coz’ most of the times their DNS keeps crashing probably coz’ it exceeds the overall no that it can handle or someone just switches them off ! So atleast in the local setup,I have got a list of 4-5 DNS ips , all in different subnets and invariably (more than 95% of times) , it works after changing the DNS ips. Recently though I had this weird connectivity problem and the helpline folks told me that the entire data center near my place was facing connectivity problems . Can’t do much in such cases!
3. Lastly, there is a fantastic product from Cisco that many SPs around the world are deploying in order to manage subscribers / their usage/ what protocols they use etc in a much better manner called SCE ( and rightly Service Control Engine) -> http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6151/
Leave a reply