[sgiitk]

Airtel may be on slippery turf, since now with MNP people may just ship out. I wonder if some ISP was to announce that he has no intention of charging for Skype / Viber how many ports will he get?

[itwasntme]

Personally I wonder how many people regularly use VoIP on cellular networks. It simply cannot be used if moving around in a car etc. Maybe I am an exception but max 3 times have I made Skype calls using 3g in the last 8+ years in BLR.

Only twice I have parked by the roadside in central Bangalore and dialled into my office VC bridge using Polycom Mobile. The experience was excellent except it used up huge bandwidth!

My worry is if they sneak this into broadband connections!

[rangarx]

Airtel knows to fleece customers. I am a victim myself. No wonder they are the first one to voice this. And I won't wonder if they succeed, with the lobby they have got.

Certain things are really detrimental for the growth and I am disappointed to say the least.

[naveenroy]

This is incredibly stupid. But I am sure that Airtel will get away with it. Mark my words.

Maybe Anon should look into this case where Airtel is specifically toying with Net Neutrality.

Might be a little OT Ok, just a question to you guys, want your personal opinion.

Let's take away the legal/illegal question regarding torrents. Or say that you only use torrents for downloading legal downloads - linux releases for example. In this case, isn't it wrong for the ISP to throttle bandwidth for torrents alone?

[hserus]

Please don't advocate something that is illegal, and will wind up causing issues for multiple customers of Airtel.

Also, torrents are more often than not used for downloading pirated movies and software, so while I fully acknowledge that legitimate downloads are also available on torrent, the question of blocking it or not is a bit more gray than the one about different tiered pricing for voip.

Also - as the TRAI chairman pointed out, there is currently no regulation or law for or against network neutrality in India. So Airtel is well within their rights legally to charge such a fee.

[Dry Ice]

#boycottairtel is catching up on twitter. Not sure if Airtel is really bothered about it though.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

#boycottairtel is catching up on twitter. Not sure if Airtel is really bothered about it though.

Considering most impacted users are probably using WhatsApp for SMS and VOIP services for long distance calls, it is unlikely that Airtel was getting much profits from these users anyway.

[sandip]

As per the latest reports, Airtel is reconsidering their decision.

Looks like social media outcry has done its job.

Just wondering, who had this bright idea of charging extra for VOIP and what is he upto now.

[saket77]

Finally Airtel relents.

Facing flak over its decision to impose higher tariff on internet telephony, Bharti Airtel finally cracked under pressure and decided to defer its decision pending regulatory view on the matter.

Link to news:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/t...w/45673580.cms

[sgiitk]

Scheme is scrapped, with the rider that all tariffs may be hiked. I also heard that Voda and one or two others were waiting in the wings.

[Jaggu]

Tariff increase is already announced, i remember seeing an email saying my basic voice plan charge is going to be increased by 25 Rs wef Jan, this was about a month back. Earlier it was 325, which will be made 350 starting Jan if i remember correct.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

Scheme is scrapped, with the rider that all tariffs may be hiked. I also heard that Voda and one or two others were waiting in the wings.

Maybe that is what they wanted all along.

Actually I have long held that data tariffs in India are unrealistically low due to competition (since the days of the 98 rs for 1GB plan by Docomo soon copied by others) and had to rise.

I would much rather that they charge a honest price for data, and let users do whatever they wish (whether VOIP or whatsapp or anything else).

Note that they didn't do this on broadband because pureplay BB providers like ACT would gladly have swooped in to pick up any customers they pissed off. I use skype heavily at home and would've switched to ACT as soon as they could connect me - the new pricing was a deal-killer for skype-heavy users like me.

[vinit.merchant]

Originally Posted by zenren

I see this as similar to the situation where they charge for SMS on festive days etc. even if you are subscribed to a free SMS pack to ensure there is a check on the load that they would get in their system. When SMS used to be free, everyone used to send the festive greetings to their entire contact list since it was 'free'. The moment it started getting charged, everyone started screening the same list and sent messages to only those that really matter, thereby bringing down the load on the system.

Though the scheme has already been scrapped, I still cannot relate the VOIP to the bulk SMS example.
I understand that people want to wish everyone and type one message to be sent to all, thereby increasing the load, but how does this apply to VOIP?

I cannot think of any reason why someone would make a VOIP call unnecessarily. The person at the other end must also be that much free to accept the call and waste time for nothing. Even if there are such examples, such usage would be hardly material to justify such a charge.

This was a clear case of Airtel wanting to
1. Increase their revenue by charging VOIP
2. Freeing up some bandwidth that would result from subscribers reducing their VOIP use.

[prasanna.vps]

Great, this is all we needed. In the name of broadband, we get puny bit rates and this to top it all off. Might as well increase the rates for missed calls while they are at it.

I have been in telco industry for more than 15 years now, while Bharti has brought in all technological advances. They have deliberately stopped investing over the last few years. We are stuck in 2010 and are not moving forward. Policy rethink is needed!

[benbsb29]

Updated the title to reflect this has been deferred for the time being.