Praneel’s Blog

Here is a big disappointment with a little bit of good news.
The disappointment –
“Flexi 350” is a 256 kbps plan, not a 256 – 2 Mbps one. And there is no Night time free (2-8am)

The Good News –
“Home 900” unlimited is now “Home 750” unlimited (at 256 kbps). A slash in price of Rs. 150 . BSNL automatically changed all Home 900 plans into Home 750 Plans.

If you are not sure how much bandwidth you are going to use, then take Flexi 350 which is enough for casual browsing, email and a lot of instant messaging. If you exceed the plan’s limit of 2GB in a month you will be charged at Rs. 0.85 /MB of transfer. So after exceeding ~ 2.5 GB of transfer in a month your plan will become unlimited Home 750 for that month only.

Impact –
Is minimal, but encourages more people to get a broadband (as it is called by BSNL) connection.
Decreased risk of heavy bills, compared to Home 125 , Home 250 and Home 500 plans which are not suitable for people with less understanding about bandwidth.
If your broadband usage varies between months this plan will save a good amount of money. There is no worry if you decided to use more bandwidth in a particular month- your monthly bill will never exceed Rs. 750

People who don’t have a clue about the bandwidth, usually take a plan with minimal monthly pay i:e 125, 250 and 500 Home plans. And most of them end up paying the heavy bills. There was no option for an optimal speed + cost plan in Broadband category. The beauty of this Flexi 350 plan is not fully explained by BSNL people. They have to brush up their pitch. We used to pay 12000 (including taxes) for a 900 Home plan per year. Now the same plan costs between 4600 to 9960 depending upon usage.

Recommended –

I strongly recommend BSNL Flexi 350 Broadband plan for – email , browsing and instant messaging.

For beginners and parents at home.

For net junkies. If you are on Home 900 (or Home 750 now) you can change to Home 350. There is a psychology aspect here. There is no excuse now. If you know that ‘not being a net junkie’, you can save money, then it can help cure net addiction.

For people with legitimate necessity for net access and a tight budget- like job seekers and part timers. They actually know the value of money.

I hope, one day, we all can enjoy much higher speeds and learn to better utilize the resources.