Agreeing to pay the bid amount The state owned companies are already on the 3G race while the 3G auction is yet to see light of day. MTNL has earlier launched 3G commercially in the national capital while BSNL launched it’s 3G services in chennai last week, it has installed 25 stations (Node-Bs) in the city for the initial launch where in BSNL will offer data speed of 2 Mbps against 144 Kbps available now over the GPRS and EDGE enabled mobile networks.
Reportedly MTNL has also announced launching it’s 3G services in Mumbai by early April, overshooting its earlier intentions of launching services by February-end. The company has completed its beta testing successfully and is ready for the commercial rollout of the services. MTNL has already set up 720 base transceiver stations (BTS) for its 3G rollout in the Mumbai circle.
In another report Airtel has announced the launch of its innovative ‘Speed-on-Demand’ service for its broadband customers. ‘Speed on Demand’ offers Airtel broadband customers to upgrade their broadband speed for a select duration and pay for only that usage. This ‘Pay as You Use’ model supposidly allows customers the flexibility of enjoying high speed broadband to access applications such as gaming, without changing their current plan.
Airtel’s ‘Speed on Demand’ plan coincides with another covert update launched last week – ‘Speed Rationalization’. Its absurd and insults its existing user base, particularly the one that has opted for its unlimited plans.
I’ve blogged about it here,
http://itwofs.com/beastoftraal/2009/03/02/421/
and
http://itwofs.com/beastoftraal/2009/03/03/airtels-fair-usage-speed-rationalization-explained/
Have also written to Sunil Mittal, Manoj Kohli and Atul Bindal, besides signing the online petition at,
http://afup.broadbandforum.in/
…that has 1000+ signatures already.