Contention Ratios, the biggest bone of Contention

In India some time ago there was a very funny series of advertisements which everyone laughed over which had the tagline " kitna dete hai"

These advertisements ended with the sentiment that people in India didn't care much for any quality or features but were obsessed with the money part of things.

For us as quality Internet Service Providers, this is a nightmare. From time to time, we are approached by customers who just bring us leaflets from all corners of the service providing world. Some from even big brands who are who they profess to be franchisees of.

( I will deal with the issue of pretending to be a Franchisee of a big brand and actually selling the bottom end packs of other brands in a later article called the "3 shell game")

As a followup to my articles about "Broadband Speeds in India being an Illusion" and the "Case of the Missing Bandwidth", I thought it was time to discuss the contention ratio issue

What is a "Contention Ratio" ?

Basically it can boil down to Amount of Bandwidth available Vs Amount of bandwidth through the interconnects to the rest of the world.

Or in simpler terms, amount of bandwidth customers fight for at peak times.

(for definition of bandwidth, please click here)

As per TRAI suggestions every ISP is supposed to publish its contention ratios on its website. Some ISPs do, but the contention ratios mandated by TRAI can drive most customers up the wall

For broadband fixed line customers it is 1:40. In today's interconnected world, that frankly is "THE PITS"

But guess what, a lot of ISPs get away with it. The one closest to our level of service has a published ratio of 1:30,.

So at GTTPL, being quality ISPs we have decided to launch 3 packages, for the "kitna dete hai" category of customers who only look at the bottom line and not the real quality a pack of 1:30 ratio which is more than competitive with the market, we have launched the BLUE packs.

IMP: (By the way for low end users who only use the net for whatsapp, light surfing etc, we do recommend these packs even though they are not really the price conscious category, since they get amazing bandwidth throughput in the non peak hours, so there's really nothing wrong about buying a BLUE pack)

For customers who use are quality conscious rather than just looking at just prices and magically proposed bandwidth we have launched the GOLD packs with a ratio of 1:8 which have great throughput and are normally used for customers who use video streaming and other bandwidth heavy products

(I have an unlimited 50Mbps pack in my residence in a premium area in Mumbai and the max I have recd is 8Mbps and maybe close to 50Mbps maybe twice or thrice this quarter during non peak hours, but I am wise enough to take the number with a pinch of salt)

However, we have been approached by customers who are ULTRA QUALITY CONSCIOUS heavy users and have multiple video streams running in their houses or are working internationally from home and for them as per TRAI suggestions (see image above about contention ratios) we have launched the PLATINUM 1:4 packs.

GTTPL is lucky that to date almost all their customers are a niche market of customers who are aware of the reality of life and understand that there's no free lunch since for any ISP or customer,

They understand the fact of life is, the lower the GENUINE contention ratio to be maintained, the more bandwidth they need to keep in reserve for the peak hours and therefore the higher the price of the package.