Airtel has become the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide 8 Mbps broadband to India. Currently, the speeds on offer range from 256 Kbps to 4 Mbps. Users will be able to download a 5 MB music file in 5 seconds flat as compared to 160 seconds on a 256 kbps connection.
Announcing the launch of the new product, Bharti Airtel President (Broadband and Telephone Services) Atul Bindal said with this the Airtel broadband customers could now browse multiple windows and at the same time, download heavy files, view streaming video, enjoy online gaming, chat, email and other applications.The offering would be commercially available soon, he said, adding the price points of this offering is still being worked out. However, roughly the price point could be around Rs 2,000 for a download of 7-8 Gbs.
Tariff plans and product offerings are also being worked out to enable customers, who do not want a 24-hour eight mpbs speed but want them for certain applications or a short duration of time, to avail the new offering.
Airtel’s objective while finalising the tariff plan for the new offering would not be to make it very expensive but rather to achieve a deeper penetration and to open the market, said Bindal. It already has a Carrier Ethernet Network operational in Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai. In the next phase Mumbai too would be upgraded to CEN.
CEN allows not only provisioning of high speed plans to broadband customers but also delivery of triple play services. In the other cities, the SDH network has been upgraded to deliver four and 8 Mbps speeds.
“With the 8Mbps speed, our network will also be IPTV ready,” he said adding the pilot run at NCR had been going on successfully and once the clarity on government regulatory came through, Airtel would be in a position to launch the service in NCR and subsequently in other places.
Source : Indiatimes
