In a welcome yet epic move, public telecom operator, BSNL has decided to increase the FUP (Fair Usage Policy) speed to 1 Mbps from the crawling slow 512 Kbps across the country from 1 August 2016. This new FUP policy would be valid for all BSNL subscribers (new as well as existing).

Almost all telecom operators in India offer dual speed unlimited plans. Users get a limited amount of data at high-speed, post which they can still use the internet as much as they want but at lower speed. This is called as Fair Usage Policy (FUP) and it is meant to prevent bandwidth abuse by heavy downloaders on a shared connection. But that’s not the case, always. Sometimes FUP is also meant to protect the consumers’ internet.

Recently, it was seen that these FUP guidelines of providing 512 Kbps at least was being violated by many leading telcos.

Why Do We Hate FUP?

FUP is not a bad thing to start with, but the telecom operators have managed to transform it into something evil. These days, the telcos don’t want to offer huge volume of data, but they tend to justify their subscription plans with the pre-FUP speed which is usually way more than the users need to basic browsing activities including video streaming.

This helps the telcos in many ways. This high-speed (usually 4 Mbps and above) not only helps them justify the pricing of broadband plans but also affects the users psychologically. Nobody wants to get downgraded to 512 Kbps after using the internet at 8 Mbps. So, normal users tend to consume less multimedia content just out of the fear of exhausting their high-speed too soon. Hence, they are in a way, forced to not use the internet beyond their limited high-speed data. And that;s exactly why we are not a huge fan of FUP.

BSNL Has Learnt From User Feedback

While private telecom operators are busy reaping profits without caring about what their customers want, BSNL has listened to broadband subscribers’ feedback and has hence increased the FUP speed to 1 Mbps which is also in line with TRAI’s recommendation of minimum 2 Mbps speed by 2015.

Last year, BSNL also raised the broadband speed in the country to minimum 2 Mbps (pre-FUP).

BSNL is the leading wired broadband provider in the country having over 9.91 million subscribers and maintains a huge lead over Airtel and MTNL having 1.76 M and 1.1 M subscribers respectively. BSNL has always been known as the ISP with the widest reach since long, and with this move to raise the FUP to 1 Mbps it is likely to gain a lot of new subscribers.

It remains to be been what others telecom operators would to tackle this FUP trump card played by BSNL. Would they start offering more high-speed data, or increase the FUP speed to 1 Mbps? I am willing to bet on the second option. What do you think will happen?