Vikramaditya
Port Blair, June 02: While rest of India is enjoying unimaginably affordable Broadband Plans and Mobile Data of BSNL, people of Andaman and Nicobar Islands are still paying heavily for pathetic broadband service of BSNL. Sometimes costs are as high has Rs. 12000 to Rs.15000 as per usage.
In recent past there have been huge demand for providing high speed internet through CANI submarine OFC project, which seems to be a never ending fight.
But for now many Islanders are demanding PAN India BSNL Broadband Tariff for Andaman or atleast the new BSNL Broadband BSNL Tariff which was declared for Andamans recently.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, Dr. Jijith Rekh, spokesperson of BJP in A & N Islands said that the Islanders have already suffered huge losses due to lockdown.
“Islanders are paying heavy bills for the broadband connections and data compared to other subscribers in Mainland. DoT has already approved a new tariff for Andamans. BSNL should adopt this tariff at least for the time being. Our demand is for PAN India rates but for the time being if this rate is adopted it will be a big relief for the Islanders,” Dr. Jijith Rekh added.
However, the BSNL Andaman through its twitter handle has already said that PAN India rate is impossible as satellite media, sourced from ISRO, is inherently expensive.
“It is illogical to demand that tariff in A&N be on par with mainland, since costs have to be covered by a co. BSNL’s BB plans here are based on FAIR USAGE POLICY, so that one gets a fair chance at expensive satellite bandwidth,” the BSNL Andaman had mentioned in a reply in twitter.
One wonders in that case what is hindering the BSNL from implementing new BB tariff which has already been declared for Islands. Atleast during time of pandemic when everyone is facing financial constrains new BB tariff will bring some relief for Islanders.
