A few weeks ago the Indian broadband scene witnessed a breakthrough of sorts. Bharat Sanchar Nigam, more commonly known as BSNL, announced upgrades that quite possibly had even the technology enthusiasts’ eyebrows raised. The company raised the connection speed being offered in almost all its tariff plans to 2 Mbps. Other internet service providers were forced to follow suit and pull up their socks. Consequently, broadband in India stands in a much better position than it did only a couple of weeks ago.
Broadband, unlimited
An unlimited connection on the other hand is one that has no restrictions on downloads or uploads. There’s no catch save for the fact that most unlimited connections are slower than those with bandwidth restrictions and are more expensive as well. ISPs such as BSNL justify this move by mentioning that without restrictions ‘errant users’ will dominate the lines and slow down the speed for others. If you find yourself to be an ‘errant user’ according to BSNL’s categorisation of its customers, then it makes sense to cough up more money and choose a plan with unlimited access. Tata Indicom for instance, has a 256 Kbps unlimited connection for Rs 1,200 a month. For more details you can check on its website, www.tataindicombroadband .in. If in a day, you spend several hours on the internet—that is, visit multimedia websites like youtube.com, download music and videos and even play multiplayer computer games online like World of Warcraft—then don’t think twice and choose an unlimited connection. On the other hand, if you want searing speeds in order to do your work quickly and you don’t download much, then a 512 Kbps connection with a 1 GB traffic limit will serve you fine.
The fine print
For the best of both worlds, read the fine print on the ISP’s plans. Many ISPs, in spite of quota restrictions, have ‘free hours’ every night where one can download as they please. BSNL for instance marks its night unlimited hours from 2 am to 8 am. This means that even though you may have a 500 MB limit per month, whatever you transfer between those hours won’t be counted by the service provider. Keep a check on your traffic each day if you have a quota based account. You can do this by logging into the website using the username and password provided to you. This will help you evaluate how much data you consume each day. As a reference, about 30 minutes of voice chat using Google Talk or Yahoo Voice Chat will result in approximately 5 MB of usage. An hour of surfing news and visiting other websites is about 10 MB. Finally, once you have chosen the scheme appropriate for you, decide on the type of installation you want. You can go for a standard modem that will connect to your computer using the Ethernet port or go for a wireless modem. If you own a notebook which has Wi-Fi, a wireless modem is useful. Expect one of these to cost anything between Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000.
source: Indiatimes
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