Unlimited or Unlimited*, Both may look or may even sound the same but unfortunately the star mark has it all which means that unlimited but with an FUP, FUP which is the short form of Fair Usage Policy signifies that download will be capped at a certain limit for say 10 GB or 5GB which again depends on the operator to operator. It has been found almost all private operators has an FUP plans except the once which are state owned telecom operators like which are BSNL and MTNL which doesn’t come with any sorts of Fair Usage Policy.
So, what exactly the fair usage means is that under the FUP, the usage levels will be limited to the certain higher upper limits. Some of the operators reduce the speed drastically by almost a half or to 256 Kbps by continuing the unlimited downloads. Also, most importantly you will have to look out for the terms and conditions before signing the tariff chart or before opting for the broadband tariff.
When asked to all the private operators who offer Internet data services with the fair usage policy sticker, the operators said that most of the users doesn’t touch or reach the FUP limits which means that only a handful of customers reach these limits and to maintain the Quality of Service (QoS) it’s very important to maintain that the data limits are not misused and are used within the limits so that all the users can get the allocated bandwidth.
India’s biggest telecom service provider airtel, which recently came up with the Impatience plans has now launched an all new FUP (Fair usage Policy) where in after reaching the higher limit, the speeds will be lowered to 256 Kbps.
What exactly forces the operators to rope in the FUP in its services that operators have to now follow the TRAI’s QoS as operators need to maintain the contention ratio which again should be within the limits or else customers have an option to file in the complaint with the respective call centers of the operators. As some broadband customers use file sharing software and download large files like music and videos, this is fine if done in moderation but customers that do this a lot use up lots of network capacity and leave less available for everyone else