Airtel has become the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide 8 Mbps broadband to India. Currently, the speeds on offer range from 256 Kbps to 4 Mbps. Users will be able to download a 5 MB music file in 5 seconds flat as compared to 160 seconds on a 256 kbps connection.
Announcing the launch of the new product, Bharti Airtel President (Broadband and Telephone Services) Atul Bindal said with this the Airtel broadband customers could now browse multiple windows and at the same time, download heavy files, view streaming video, enjoy online gaming, chat, email and other applications.The offering would be commercially available soon, he said, adding the price 
points of this offering is still being worked out. However, roughly the price point could be around Rs 2,000 for a download of 7-8 Gbs.
Tariff plans and product offerings are also being worked out to enable customers, who do not want a 24-hour eight mpbs speed but want them for certain applications or a short duration of time, to avail the new offering.
Airtel’s objective while finalising the tariff plan for the new offering would not be to make it very expensive but rather to achieve a deeper penetration and to open the market, said Bindal. It already has a Carrier Ethernet Network operational in Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai. In the next phase Mumbai too would be upgraded to CEN.
CEN allows not only provisioning of high speed plans to broadband customers but also delivery of triple play services. In the other cities, the SDH network has been upgraded to deliver four and 8 Mbps speeds.
“With the 8Mbps speed, our network will also be IPTV ready,” he said adding the pilot run at NCR had been going on successfully and once the clarity on government regulatory came through, Airtel would be in a position to launch the service in NCR and subsequently in other places.
Source : Indiatimes
October 11th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
hmm thanks I have already noted this and had called them up to inquire they said please call back after two to three weeks to get further details.
I have posted this as well.
October 11th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Wow that’s great news but in my area there are only fews ISP providers
Thanks Amit
October 11th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Kudos to Airtel.
But the reach of airtel broadband service is very limited. In kerala, they have presence only at Kochi. where as BSNL’s DataOne has already reached at the panchayath levels. Hope Bharti will take steps to get the villages of India connected.
October 11th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Dear Amith,
Thanks for the information, can you please give me your contact details if you dont mind.
Regards,
Prasad Sistla,
Mob: 98483 99339
October 11th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
wooow!! thats awesome but I don’t think airtel will come in my locality
October 11th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
This is great new for Indians,any idea how much they will charge for this kind of speed?
October 11th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Ha Ha! Bandwidth Restriction
!!!
We have a 8 MBPS Line with Unlimited Bandwidth which costs around 25 Pounds (Rs.2100)! Now thats smart
! Download speed is almost near to 5 MBPS.
Cheers!!
October 11th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Oh thats very great, i am using 15kbps per second
October 11th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
This would be the only broadband company in india offering this internet speed.
October 14th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
This is bullshit. What possible application would be there.
Only if someone wants to chat on broadband for around 20 hours a day. This is useless for a daily user or donwloader.
You could download the entire limit in 3 hours.
October 18th, 2007 at 7:04 am
this is very funny
giving high speed and restricting to low downloads
bloody business minds
October 18th, 2007 at 7:05 am
waiting to see a response from bsnl
October 18th, 2007 at 7:15 am
this is totally a crap
giving full speed and telling dont drive long drive
waiting to see a response from bsnl
October 20th, 2007 at 2:52 am
I would love to see an unlimited 8Mbps plan being launched by airtel broadband in the near future as this 8mbps speed with a less then 10gb cap is no use to me and I guess all of you would agree with me on this.
October 29th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Yeah….its a goood think to do with Indian Internet connection. Actually here in India internet connection is five times the cost that is available in US or UK. Here people aren’t able to even get 128KBPS unlimited connection as it’s priced at Rs.699/- PM where as in US 2MBPS unlimited connection is available for $25 i.e. Rs.1100/- PM & moreover Indian ISP’s don’t know that doubling the internet connection speed won’t just double Cost. So i think this 8MBPS unlimited internet connection here in India would cost 32000/-($760)PM then who will be able to get this connection, it would be costing a months salary!!!
October 31st, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Udit as per airtel officials the pricing of this service would be very much lower than your expectation.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
in india it cant success.they should provide low cost unlimited even slow speed.why a normal person needs so much speed
November 15th, 2007 at 8:08 am
OMG 2K is a bit high and that too not umlimited
BSnl broadband 2 Mbps is Only rocking at this time
3 plans 250 500 900 for home users
easy on Pocket , if Airtel can give 8 Mbps unlimited for 1 K i can burn lot of HDD’s
@ udit
the problem we have is infrastrucure and cost associated with it
lalit nagrath’s last blog post..My First Review - Amit Bhawani
January 29th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
i want to take the airtel broadband connection ….what are the procedures & i also need the rates of this connection
February 2nd, 2008 at 8:48 pm
its good to hear that airtel 8mbps finally stepped in, but at 2k and with downloads of less than 10gb limited, thats crappp!!!! The public needs high speed broaband connection for fast and unlimited downloads and not for browsing because a 256kbps connection is good enough for that. At that price airtel better have some answers for that.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:04 am
oh…………….that is very great 2 use airtel and im very proud 2 use this system
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
BSNL is also offering 8Mbps connection now all over india and will soon offer for Home users too.
February 28th, 2008 at 12:20 am
i can certainly predict, this plan won’t become favorite until it is slightly changed in its nature…to get customer some sacrifice is necessary. yes it may be 8mbps or little lower but as much the smoke , flame is not that much.
March 4th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Ha Ha …
in india these providers are not even giving 256KBps-kilobytes still now(where as they r only giving 256Kbps-kilobits & now they are saying they will provide 8MBps.
hey dont believe in these provides they always lure the customers by some big words which doesnt do the actual thing.
April 6th, 2008 at 1:25 am
everything turns out be hype. even the basic speed is to hard to expect. what is promised and what is delivered is totally different. its very frustating when u shell out so much money but not get your money’s worth. when you question this they say speed depends on various factors like RAM, traffic on the site etc etc…. well its totally frustating !!!
April 7th, 2008 at 7:57 am
man its not the fault of service provider
that you get the speeds of not more than 256KBps, its all the role of server u r using for eg. if you download from servers like google n microsoft the speed is not less 1MBs. while if u download from servers
like bsnl the speed will be only 20- 20 KBps. hence 8MBs is only useful 4 those who use p2p appilications like torrent or those who do several things at a time.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:20 am
wat a joke giving gold and saying do not take it
May 21st, 2008 at 11:58 am
GOOD NEWS for tataindicom broadband users in BANGALORE.
Now u need to worry about wire cut , cable theft becoz VSNL has Launched wireless Broadband called
WiMax
The customers who is suffering from more down time or no isp providers available. Pls give End for these Problems.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Getting an Airtel Broadband connection in Karnataka for your homes or offices was never this easy.
No filling up long application forms and the paperwork anymore.
No waiting in the long Queues just to subscribe for internet broadband connection.
No waiting for 1 to 3 months just to get an broadband connection
Getting internet connection with absolutely no network downtime.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I’m a resident of Kerala,using airtel prepaid connection.
Can i use airtel broadband connection…..
Plz inform me on my email id:shintorichu@yahoo.com