The Great Mobile Internet Ripoff!

As India prefers mobile internet over fixed-line, a heavy rush of users cram-packs the digital highway, making slow and erratic the online norm.

- Arindam Mukherjee

Believe it or not, the tech-savvy former J&K CM Omar Abdullah has actually downgraded his net connection from optical fibre to ancient dial-up. The reason: poor connectivity and quality of service. “There are such wonderful advertisements on 4G and that you can get connected even on mountain-tops and so on. Really? it’s not even available in Jammu and Srinagar,” he complains. Stressing that quantity has been given more importance than quality of internet in india, he stresses,

“We certainly envy those who have faster internet speeds. There is no option but to live with this problem.”

Not too far away, in download heaven Gurgaon—the city boasts of some of the fastest internet speeds in the country—IT professional Joydeep Chaudhury finds it next to impossible to access internet on his mobile while on the move. The speeds are pathetic, the line is inconsistent and a proper connection almost always difficult to get. The story is similar for the connection at home, an 8 mbps Airtel wireline one. Three years ago, when he took the connection, it worked fine. In the past two years, there has been a huge degradation of the services.

Call drops is yesterday’s story. For over 300 million Indians who regularly hook

 

Kochi

Anthony P.S., 39