Spectranet, one of India’s oldest internet service providers, has entered Bangalore, its first market in South India, with aggressively priced broadband plans.
The company, which started in Delhi more than a decade ago, is offering ‘truly unlimited’ 50 Mbps plan for Rs 1,349 per month. Including taxes, however, the monthly bill will come to around Rs 1,600. For 100 Mbps, charges are Rs 1,849 per month.
In comparison, established player You Broadband offers only a 10 Mbps connection at about Rs 1,900 per month, according to its website. Moreover, You Broadband has only ‘limited usage’ plans in 50 and 100 Mbps category, and gives 500 GB at 100 Mbps for Rs 1,740 per month.
At present, Spectranet Broadband will be available only at certain locations such as Bannerghatta, Electronic City, Kundalhalli and Bellandur. “We will be adding more areas in a phased out fashion,” it said.
Spectranet’s prices for Bangalore are in line with what the company offers in its older markets such as Mumbai. Bangalore is arguably India’s most competitive broadband market and has several players that offer fiber-to-the-home services.
Being fiber-based service, the 100 Mbps speed will hold good for both uploads and downloads, the company said. Many copper- and wireless-based services offer lower upload bandwidth compared to download speeds.
Even as much of the country does not even have a 2 Mbps connection, India’s cities are seeing the rapid roll-out of fiber-to-home services with 100-1000 Mbps of bandwidth at the end user level.
These services are enabling users to access new services such as 4K streaming and virtual reality. “They now will be able to utilize products and services which they were unable to use because of non-availability of good quality broadband,” Spectranet said.
Spectranet said it will be making special initial offers for the first 30 days of launching in any locality.
“In the US, minimum broadband speed is 25 mbps, we want to bring our customers at par with the global broadband users,” said Udit Mehrotra, Managing Director & CEO, Spectranet.