Thread: Hayai Broadband: How it all began!

Originally Posted by manu1991

Yes that should be the case but on MTNL i get better pings on Malaysian Servers than Singapore and better pings on UK servers than US ones

Good news (maybe): Bharti is planning to acquire a significant portion of MTNL.

Originally Posted by admin

in case you have not heard/read about it... mtnl and bsnl babus threaten to go on strike everytime the government talks about renting the network (established by public money) to private companies.

it could easily enhance the availability of reliable and cheap broadband in the country considering the network is ALREADY there.

bsnl and mtnl are sore losers who have too much power in their hands.

The networks inside of India aren't the problem. It's the US$400k that VSNL charges for a 155Mbit line that eats up a significant amount of the financial resources: not to mention the high startup costs for obtaining licenses and such.

Originally Posted by admin

3G launch is a good example. they have/had so much time in their hands to capture the market. but what have they done. bsnl has 10,000 customers. mtnl has 1000. in around 6 months.

bsnl has already decided to outsource their 3G service to a third party. mtnl is working on a similar plan.

They're useless at selling, first of all. There is little or no 3G awareness in India, and those that know about it are put off by the high costs (Rs 3 per MB last time I checked?)

Originally Posted by rak007

^^ with their outrageously expensive 3G plans they are bound to not get customers to avail the 3G services.

Exactly. What about 3G costs them more? Even Vodafone (most expensive when it comes to GPRS?) charges about Rs 1/MB on their 2G network - surely it doesn't cost MTNL/BSNL 3x as much to deliver the same MB.

Originally Posted by blr_p

Imagine watching an ad, in India that made such an outlandish claim

Thats really what your proposed service is, in short. Its not torrent friendly as the price might make it not worth it but for direct downloads there wont be much competition.

Au contraire. We are designing the services around being able to share - thats a big driver for the unlimited-speed-unlimited-quota in-network feature. But more importantly, the overall goal is to offer much higher caps than the competition (where caps are necessary), or fairer fair-use policies (250GB instead of 100GB maybe?) or if at all possible, full fledged unlimited access.

What if we released two nearly identical plans as follows:
2 Mbits. Fair Use Policy of 250GB, then bandwidth is throttled to 512k until the next billing cycle. Rs 2,000.
2 Mbits. True unlimited connection - no over-use charges, no throttling of any kind. Rs 3,000.
Personally, I suspect that most people would go for the first option (please note, these are hypothetical examples only).

Originally Posted by blr_p

Airtel did come out with a similar ad earlier but the prices they were asking made it more an insult than something interesting.

Anyway, will go to town more on whats good or not once you update us on prices tomorrow

Aye, it was a good meeting indeed

Originally Posted by blr_p

aka, the COMMIE effect ..then again they have had a reversal in the last election so will the same hold true now ?

The other point that came to mind is turf.

Mumbai is carved out and the players have to respect each others turf.

While Mumbai is carved out in to more pieces than a Turkey on American Thanksgiving day, given that I'm not in that group, I guess I have to just blanket the city as originally planned. The man I met today thinks I'm mad and suggests that I partner with them/lease their lines. I had to explain to him that their lines are not in suitable shape for such high-bandwidth applications, such as the ones we want to have, which seemed to satisfy him.

Originally Posted by avirup2008

Can we expect tailor made packages for certain user class scenarios to be distributed among the section interested in a particular prioritisation?

I am talking about a gaming package or say perhaps a package more suitable towards torrent downloaders. User class groups could then choose the right tariff plan that would cater specifically to their needs.

Anything like that on the cards?

What have you got in mind? Are you thinking "slower, but truely unlimited" or "we'll pay more for truely unlimited" or something in between?

I realize that even if I have a large range of "standard" plans, that I can't please absolutely everybody, so if such requests come, I will think about it and if it is economically viable, I see no problems in doing that.

That said, as I've mentioned, we're trying to put together plans that are inexpensive enough for "casual" users, but powerful enough to satisfy your average torrent-freak.

For gamers, we would expect that anything we provide will be more than adequate, as we have no plans to enter the sub 1Mbits market at all, and I may even drop the 1Mbit plan, setting a minimum speed of 2Mbits on speed-based plans.

Originally Posted by Crazysah

I can't wait to see what unlimited plans you have to offer...

Neither can I. I'm waiting for the actual numbers to arrive in my Inbox from today's meeting. All I know right now is that, my bandwidth supply will probably be less costly than I have been anticipating, meaning I can buy more for less, provide more speed to the same number of customers and open up the possibility of some unlimited plans at much better prices than the competition.

Originally Posted by mgcarley

Good news (maybe): Bharti is planning to acquire a significant portion of MTNL.

Makes sense for Bharti but i'm not sure how MTNL users will react. Many have said they were quite happy with the MTNL performance & price. Then again said users never had a choice of Airtel in mumbai to begin with so this is prolly biased.

Originally Posted by mgcarley

Au contraire. We are designing the services around being able to share - thats a big driver for the unlimited-speed-unlimited-quota in-network feature.

Yes, and i'll grant you that will work well provided the content is located domestically. But if its foreign thats when it looks less attractive. Sure as your customer base grows then the chances get better of finding stuff but i think that would years down the line.

In all fairness unless your prices are finalised its hard to say either way.

Originally Posted by mgcarley

But more importantly, the overall goal is to offer much higher caps than the competition (where caps are necessary), or fairer fair-use policies (250GB instead of 100GB maybe?) or if at all possible, full fledged unlimited access.

What if we released two nearly identical plans as follows:
2 Mbits. Fair Use Policy of 250GB, then bandwidth is throttled to 512k until the next billing cycle. Rs 2,000.
2 Mbits. True unlimited connection - no over-use charges, no throttling of any kind. Rs 3,000.
Personally, I suspect that most people would go for the first option (please note, these are hypothetical examples only).

Originally Posted by mgcarley

What have you got in mind? Are you thinking "slower, but truely unlimited" or "we'll pay more for truely unlimited" or something in between?

I realize that even if I have a large range of "standard" plans, that I can't please absolutely everybody, so if such requests come, I will think about it and if it is economically viable, I see no problems in doing that.

That said, as I've mentioned, we're trying to put together plans that are inexpensive enough for "casual" users, but powerful enough to satisfy your average torrent-freak.

For gamers, we would expect that anything we provide will be more than adequate, as we have no plans to enter the sub 1Mbits market at all, and I may even drop the 1Mbit plan, setting a minimum speed of 2Mbits on speed-based plans.

Right now, for me going from 384kbs to 1Mbs with perhaps a higher cap (if needed) at Rs.999 is the sweet spot. This would make a lot of streaming videos bearable and more spontaneous to watch.

Its possible i might switch to higher speeds later if the need arose.

Originally Posted by saurabh28

Even i can't wait......
I m a huge downloader so, i can't wait to c the unlimited plans offered by u .......

How heavy is "heavy"?

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Originally Posted by blr_p

Yes, and i'll grant you that will work well provided the content is located domestically. But if its foreign thats when it looks less attractive. Sure as your customer base grows then the chances get better of finding stuff but i think that would years down the line.

Months, we hope. You're right about the foreign downloads. Without any traffic graphs and statistics in front of me, it's hard to determine, since heavy users like ourselves are difficult to pidginhole.

In your case, possibly something like plan with a fair-usage policy (8Mbits, reduce to 1 after 80GB) for whatever might be your best option, or even a pre-paid plan where there are no speed limits.

I don't know right now what we would provide for Rs 1,000 because I've not collected the latest pricing data from the wholesale side and plugged it in to the spreadsheets.

Originally Posted by blr_p

Right now, for me going from 384kbs to 1Mbs with perhaps a higher cap (if needed) at Rs.999 is the sweet spot. This would make a lot of streaming videos bearable and more spontaneous to watch.

Its possible i might switch to higher speeds later if the need arose.

What if we had some speed-based plans in such a way that if you purchase 1Mbit, you'll get 10GB of data. If you purchase 2 Mbits, you'll get 20GB etc - like this:

Network Access: Rs650
Options:
1Mbit with 10GB Quota: Rs500 = Total Rs1,150
2Mbit with 20GB Quota: Rs1000 = Total Rs1,650
4Mbit with 40GB Quota: Rs2000 = Total Rs2,650
...
100Mbit with 1,000GB Quota Rs50,000 = Total Rs50,650
etc

Actually this kind of seems stupid since I'm planning for the pre-paid plans to be unlimited speed - just add data (so buy 10GB for Rs1,150, but you can use it at 200Mbits irrespective of how much data you purchase)

Again, these are hypothetical examples of pricing structures.

You seem to be coming up with interesting pricing schemes. Though what matters eventually is what you settle for I wish the limits could be better. What if you had to go uncapped?

Originally Posted by ajab.ghajab

You seem to be coming up with interesting pricing schemes. Though what matters eventually is what you settle for I wish the limits could be better. What if you had to go uncapped?

Good question. It is very much something I am working towards. I think that if we can make it economically viable for all users to average out at 70% of the available bandwidth, then we would have a nice balance whereby heavy users might lose us money (per account basis), but the rest would "soften the blow", as it were.

My problem with this approach is, I've been told that certain ISPs who shall remain nameless rely on such averages, and they suffer for it.

Originally Posted by avirup2008

The real price issues are not in the speeds but the data transferred right?

Correct.

Originally Posted by avirup2008

How about a plan like this:-

1.Speeds of 2-4 Mbps with a data cap of 150 GB for Rs. 1000-1200( Should be enough for casual users and the general torrent downloaders)

Speeds of 2-4 Mbps with a data cap of 300 GB for Rs. 1800-2000( Should satisfy the power downloaders)

Speeds of 2-4 Mbps with no throttling or data caps at a charge of Rs. 3000-3500(For those who want "unlimited" in the true sense of the word)

With regards to data cap, once the limit is crossed, the speed could be reduced to half the present speed until the next billing cycle.

Again, this is just a proposed plan for the 2-4 Mbps range, which is technically what the majority of public should get under present scenarios. Tariff plans for tiers with higher or lower speed can be calculated based on similar frames.

Just a concept, but effective pricing considering today's broadband options.

I'll plug in some numbers in the morning and get back to you.

ISPs' costs, revenues don't support data cap argument - Ars Technica

I really like the second to last paragraph. Sadly, the same is not true here - peering costs Rs 50/GB here. And that, folks, is yet another reason why the US and Europe and the rest of Asia enjoys cheaper, better internet access than we do in India.

Global comparison of broadband services | Quillem.com
We get rather ripped off here, judging by the scores!

Internet Service Providers Invoke Web Usage Caps at SmartMoney.com
ISP Download Caps Not Dead, But Ought to Be | Epicenter | Wired.com
Comcast outlines plan for data caps - V3.co.uk - formerly vnunet.com
Comcast?s Wider Pipes and Broadband Caps Seemingly at Odds: P2P Complicates Matters
Another Cable ISP Imposing Bandwidth Caps

Basically, in the USA, even if you have an unlimited plan, if you are deemed to be an "excessive user", you're going to get a call from your ISP anyway.

TG Daily - Dark fiber optics increases bandwidth 19200%
KeithAlmli.com BLOG ISP Review
...
I'm not a fan of bandwidth capping - I'll do my best to eliminate them while keeping the prices reasonable.