Airtel’s Dirty Secret and My Letter to the TRAI
Update: The petition failed. My letter to Airtel was ignored, and TRAI thinks the Airtel Customer Care guys are qualified enough to do something about the new FUP. The new limits have already been discussed to death here. So much for net neutrality.
Update: TRAI seems to not really care. They replied to me with a link to a page containing Airtel’s customer care numbers and a few email addresses, along with a few office addresses. It looks like Airtel have noticed the IBF petition, though. I haven’t seen an advertisement for over 24 hours, and my speeds are back to normal. I’ll email a link to this post, as well as a link to the IBF petition to Airtel just in case (thanks to @ankurb for pointing out the email addresses.).
Two days ago, Airtel Broadband was probably the best ISP in New Delhi and the NCR, not because of the monthly plans they offer (the plans are expensive ) but because Airtel cared about their customers. That was, of course, two days ago. For the past two days, the Airtel folks have been intercepting their users’ HTTP requests to show them full page ads of their DTH services. Here’s one, if you haven’t seen it already.
If you’re thinking that’s bad, wait until you hear what they did next. After you have used a certain amount of bandwidth in a month, your internet speed is halved. This happens only for users of the exceedingly overpriced “unlimited” plans.
A few disgruntled users over at India Broadband Forums have started a petition. You can sign it here. I also sent off an email to the TRAI requesting them to take a look into the matter. Even though I haven’t had good experiences with trying to contact government offices via email, I believe it was worth a try. It would be fun to see how they react to IBF’s online petition. What follows is the full text of the email I sent to the TRAI.
Subject: Complaint Against Malpractices by Airtel Broadband
Thousands of Airtel Broadband (the broadband service provided by Bharti Airtel) users have noticed that after having used a certain amount of bandwidth, the speeds of their so-called “unlimited” broadband connections are halved. This clause was not mentioned in the original Airtel ToS (Terms of Service), and the customers were not notified of the change. Airtel have also been intercepting users’ HTTP requests to show them large, full page ads before they allow them to continue to their requested destination. This is an invasion of the users’ privacy, and another change in the original ToS which the customers have not been notified of. More details of the issue are available here: http://afup.broadbandforum.in/
As a college student, I rely heavily on the Internet for course related information, the majority of which is in the form of audio and video which requires several gigabytes of unrestricted bandwidth per month. Letting this issue go under the radar will mean thousands of college students who use Airtel Broadband will suffer. People also use their broadband connections for bandwidth intensive tasks such as video conferencing and VoIP, collaborative software development and content distribution. If Airtel is allowed to continue with their anti-consumer practices, thousands of users who rely on a fast, cheap Internet connection for their livelihood will be inconvenienced.
I request you to kindly file a formal complaint against Bharti Airtel.
Thanking you,
Ankur Sethi
I urge anybody who has contacts in TRAI to try and make a formal complaint against Airtel. Everyone else can still contact them at any of the email addresses or telephone numbers mentioned here.
19 Responses to “Airtel’s Dirty Secret and My Letter to the TRAI”
Good work. People like you are inspirational to all Indians.
Thank you..
“As a college student, I rely heavily on the Internet for course related information, the majority of which is in the form of audio and video which requires several gigabytes of unrestricted bandwidth per month.”
ROFL dude. Seriously, I laughed so hard that I’ve tears i my eyes now. So, downloading Metallica and That Latest Hollywood Movie are now ‘course requirements’, eh?
I wasn’t kidding. I’ve downloaded many of the MIT OCW lectures. I also download several Cocoa-related podcasts and screencasts every month.
This is unrelated to the post but I’m very confused about something on the internet that I keep running into.
Ok to start with, your English is immaculate and I understand that English is the official language of India so that makes sense. But what I don’t get is whether or not you are an exception to the rule or if most people’s English in India is both perfect and essentially indistinguishable from American English.
I ask because whenever you go to a site like getacoder many of the bidding firms seem to be based in India, yet they all communicate to their potential clients in this like awful pigeon English that I would think would scare the clients away.
I really don’t understand this since English is the official language of India. So it seems like they should have at least a better mastery of it then what they present on these sites.
I really hope you don’t find this post offensive. I’ve just never been to India and on tv you see so many different sides of the country, often very fictional I’m sure. I’d just like a better idea of how things are over there and what better way than to actually talk to someone who lives there.
English is not *the* official language of India. It is merely *an* official language of India — one of about 18 official languages. The national language is Hindi.
English is spoken/understood by maybe 30% of Indians (my perception, may not be reality). Nevertheless, most English speaking Indians are not native speakers. in writing it.
Proper articulation is a trait of intelligence. Rent-a-coder type places attract a lot of mediocre people. So maybe that explains your experiences. Because there are plenty of Indians (including me? you decide!) who can express their thoughts fluidly in both spoken and written English.
Lastly, I also believe that SMS and IM are to blame a bit for this phenomenon.
@Jay
> English is spoken/understood by maybe 30% of Indians > (my perception, may not be reality). Nevertheless,
> most English speaking Indians are not native
> speakers. in writing it.
30% is wayy too high, about 30 to 40 Mn, that is < 5%
@Anonymous
You should visit us! Why is English an official language?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_languages_of_India
Jay has already said all that had to be said. I’ll add a little more to that. Most people who speak pidgin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin) have learnt all the English they know from Hollywood movies, music and, as far as the guys on TopCoder et al are concerned, the Internet. Now, take a step back and think about that for a minute. Imagine learning English from your average hip-hop artist, or from the guys over at 4Chan. Scary, isn’t it? IMHO, many native speakers are no different. YouTube comments are a testament to that.
There’s, of course, another problem. People who are careless about language are often careless about everything else they do. If you see someone on the TopCoder forums with bad English, I’d suggest you dismiss him as a person who’s only hanging around the forums so he can put “participated in programming contests” on his resume. 90% of students take up CompSci for the cash. The remaining 10% whine about it on their blogs
What the user is downloading is immaterial and sidetracking from the real issue.
Airtel user here. This is disturbing.
Yup, I’m subscribed to a ton of audio and video podcasts (too many in fact—see this). Plus, I’m always pulling down iTunes U content. And yes, as Biswanath points out, what you’re downloading is immaterial. They shouldn’t be allowed to advertise plans as unlimited if they aren’t.
Their unlimited plans are overpriced, but they have no competition here in Poona. Reliance is even worse.
Haven’t experienced the throttling yet, but if I did, I’d have to consider switching ISPs.
hmm…
Airtel showing their ads while browsing - Page 2 - Broadband Forum - TechEnclave - March 1st, 2009
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India DOES NOT have a national language. Also note that “official” language is not the same as “national” language; for an official language to be deemed as the “national” language, there requires certain constitutional and legal amendments and proceedings. However, the “national” language can be an “official” language at any point of time.
Neither the Constitution of India nor Indian law specifies a “National” language. Article 343 of the constitution specifies that the “official” language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. Article 354 specifies that the legislature of a State may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the Language or Languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that State.[3] Section 8 of The Official Languages Act of 1963 (as amended in 1967) empowers the Union Government to make rules regarding the languages which may be used for the official purposes of the Union, for transaction of business in Parliament, and for communication between the Union Government and the states.[4] Section 3 of G.S.R. 1053, titled “Rules, 1976 (As Amended, 1987)” specifies that communications from a Central (Union) Government office to a State or a Union Territory in shall, save in exceptional cases (Region “A”) or shall ordinarily (Region “B”), be in Hindi, and if any communication is issued to any of them in English it shall be accompanied by a Hindi translation thereof.
Be better informed, at least about your own country !
hai friends you are please send the secret works with my mail id mr.manivel@yahoo.com
You are really an inspirational to all Indians. Keep up the gr8 work
Hey, nice tips. I’ll buy a bottle of beer to that person from that forum who told me to visit your blog
what is the cost of unlimited usage plan for airtel?and what all does this plan entail?what are the other(better)offers by competing brands?
People like you are inspirational to all Indians.
Thank you..
This is Arden Salm
Simply wanted to start out by stating
Thanks Admins !
I am new member on this site and Thank You for providing such a wonderful community !
Thanks so much.
Regards
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