Telecom giant Bharti Airtel has written to the telecom regulator TRAI to reduce data speeds from 512kbps to 64kbps, once the data cap is reached. The operator says a subscriber remains a broadband subscriber until the expiry of his assigned quota, therefore after the assigned quota the user cannot access data at the defined broadband speed. It s worth pointing out here that the government has set minimum download speed of 512 Kbps for broadband connectivity. Also Read - Vodafone Idea now rebranded as Vi in India to take on Jio and Airtel

In case of fair usage plans, the subscriber remains a broadband subscriber till the expiry of his assigned quota. Beyond the assigned quota, it cannot be the prerogative of the customer to keep on accessing data at the defined broadband speed. Hence, a service provider should be free to throttle the speed to 64kbps after the expiry of assigned data limit to the customer, said the operator while responding to TRAI s Draft Direction on Delivering Broadband Services in a Transparent Manner.

Airtel also pointed out that some customers have misused the minimum broadband speed facility, and tend to overuse the data limit.

In fact, it has been observed that some customers misuse the minimum broadband speed provision and tend to overuse the data limit in their quota. Thus the cost increases for all customers due to higher usage at 512 kbps. As a result, we are forced to keep the price at a higher threshold for every customer. Therefore, if broadband has to become affordable in the country, ideally, the Authority should not mandate any broadband speed after exhaustion of quota. However, if the Authority wants to fix a speed limit is after the expiry of quota, it may be fixed at 64kbps, it added.

The operator further says that there should not be any mandate for providing minimum speed where only a fixed data quota is provided. In case of such limited plans, broadband connected will be turned off.

On the issue of alerting users on consuming 80 percent of available data, Airtel responded, Giving pop up alerts on every login after data usage crosses the quota limit of 80 percent may result into consistent irritant for customers and lead to spike in customers complaints due to inconvenience. Further, most of the fixed broadband customers are accessing Broadband services over Wi-Fi mode (always on connections) and the connection is being shared amongst many users/ devices. Hence, it is submitted that only an alert requirement may be provided through SMS or e mail in case of 80 percent limit.

Airtel s demands for reducing post FUP speed comes amid reports that the regulator may define broadband with minimum download speed up to 1Mbps. As expected Airtel s letter has evoked negative criticism from users. Here are some comments on Airtel s letter:

@nixxin @Airtel you should simply change the term FUP to welcome to Dial up Era https://t.co/kPh5O7ggF8 Rahul Peer (@rahulPEER) February 15, 2016