According to the latest press release by TRAI,[PDF] broadband subscribers in India are at 1.7 Million at the end of Auguest-2006. TRAI has been aggressively reviewing the broadband policy to ensure higher penetration and growth rates in the next 3 years. Today it issued guidelines, for acceptable Quality of Service, failing which the broadband service provider is under obligation to refund monthly subscription fees.
Some of the key directions by TRAI are as follows,
- If there is a fault in the broadband services for more than seven days and less than 15 days, then the operator should return a monthly rental equivalent to 15 days and if broadband connection is down for more than 15 days, then the subscriber is entitled for a refund of monthly rental or equivalent usage amount.
- Broadband connections should be installed within 15 days of application. A subscriber should be given a credit at the rate of Rs 10 per day if connection for any delay.
- There should be less than 2% billing complaints and all the billing related complaints should be resolved within four weeks.
3 Cheers to TRAI and Nripendra Misra as this regulation was very much essential. However, to what extent the service providers will comply is everyones guess.
Broadband India , India Internet , Broadband Subscribers in India
Its good to hear that India has started showing growth in broadband industry. However, number of complaints have risen significantly over the past few months. I found an article “TRAI Slams Indian Broadband Providers for Poor Quality of Service” on a blog in which the author(s) have analyzed the reasons which is making TRAI angry. They say that Broadband service providers have been taking things quite lightly uptil now which has led to problems due to sudden rush of people moving towards broadband in the past few months. you can read the post here- http://www.rncos.com/Blog/2006/10/trai-slams-indian-broadband-providers.html