BSNL has issued an advertisement in Prominent national Daily Times of India dated 23 march informing new broadband plans for old and new customers. The prices:
BSNL Broadband has released new broadband plans on occasion of Deepavali.They are bunch of new crap which is filled with FUP . I don’t get a point behind rolling out unlimited plans with xxGB limit. It does not make sense other than fooling innocent customers.Bsnl, if you really want to put limits then don’t call Unlimited. this was started by Airtel . now it seems other ISP incl bsnl is following.
Further, Downloading during Night Unlimited (200-800hrs) is no longer free on new plans. I sincerely hope that bsnl does not remove free night unlimited feature from its current plans.
And if you still want to see those “crappy plans”. see below :
High Tariffs + Limited Unlimited Plan + Slow speeds = Sad State of Broadband in India 
Desperately hoping for some Change
Last night i was following this discussion over at Broadbandforum.in. And it seems Airtel has put download caps on their supposedly unlimited connections. After you are finished with your quota, they throttle your speeds 
This is absolutely ridiculous! And before people try to defend by saying that speed caps are there internationally too, i say first match the kind of speeds they provide at the rates they provide it at, then talk about caps.
The restrictions are as follows
128 kbps = download limit 10 gb
256 kbps = 15 gb
384 kbps = 20 gb
512 kbps = 25 gb
Actually Airtel has withdrawn all their unlimited plans except 256kbps and 384kbps. So, now there is no way to get 512kbps or 1mbps unlimited plan.
That too these 256kbps and 384kbps unlimited plans cost Rs 100 and Rs 200 more than their earlier price respectively..
Earlier 256kbps plan was available at Rs 799 and now the same plan costs Rs 899, whereas the 384kbps plan was available for 999Rs earlier, now costs Rs1199.
let’s get this to the mainstream media and tell them how Airtel is out to screw their own customers. They won’t even flinch till someone starts talking bad about them and till the shareholders take notice.
So here are some suggestions:
* If you have a blog, then blog about this
* Join the Facebook group (there may be some issues for now about the Join link but they’ll get fixed)
* Write to all the India specific tech blogs and sites that you know of about this – Tech 2.0, Chip, TechTree, TechShout, PC World etc
* Log complaints with customer care about this and tell them that the customers were not apprised. If they use the word “TRAI” ask them for the specifics – Article, clause, URL etc of the TRAI ruling if any – just don’t let them use the word TRAI and get away with it
Some points to remember:
* We need “bandwidth huggers” who can get the best from the internet to spurn the economy in India by sharing the ideas that they find on the internet – if you can’t experience the best, how do you spread the word?
* Take the example of Miro HD Video Player | Free internet tv and video podcast player. which promotes free Internet TV with an abundance of useful information for Indian audiences
* Take the example of a household with 2-4 users of broadband on 1 Wifi connection who would use their unlimited connection for completely legitimate purposes and still hit the cap in 10-15 days
* Take the example of people who download various Linux distros via torrents to distribute them to people who don’t want to pirate a Windows and yet get a working operating system like Ubuntu for free
* Take the examples of Indian tech startups like Rajshri.com and In.com who are providing free video content on their sites to increase demand for their products and hence churn the economy
What Airtel is doing goes against all of the above. Yes, we might have alternatives but before that we need to know whether the culprit here is TRAI or Airtel or both. Till then, this needs an open debate before the TRAI implements something without consulting the consumers and sleeping with devils like Airtel.
We we don’t act now, other ISP like BSNL will follow
[Update]
This is a Confirmed news! There is a Official Letter from Airtel
Official Confirmation from Airtel
BSNL has once again reduced charges for broadband modems which it gives to its customers for using broadband service. this reduction is done on all modem types, with charges for rental & outright purchase being reduced.what’s surprising is, that this rate cut came without any formal announcement from Bsnl. the telecom giant has simply updated its broadband tariff page with reduced rates. Here are new rates:
Modem Type Price
Type-I Rs.1000
Type-II Rs.1600
Type-III Rs.1000
Type-IV Rs.1600
Modem Type Price
Type-I Rs.50
Type-II Rs.80
Type-III Rs.50
Type-IV Rs.80
Earlier type-I & type-III modem’s sale price was Rs.1200/-, which is now Rs.1000/- and Price of Type-II & Type-IV was Rs.1800/-, which is now Rs.1600/-. so there is about Rs200 decrease .
We don’t know exactly when this charges are being reduced. But people tell me, this is done long time back, so it won’t be a new thing for many. Any rate cut from BSNL is welcome, so posting it here. Now I am Looking forward for more, cuts in future!
All Bsnl Broadband users Rejoice!, Bsnl has come up with a nice way to say Happy Diwali to its subscribers with special scheme under which All broadband users would be double of their monthly free download limit during month of November 2008 without any extra charge.
This offer is applicable to subscribers who have have BSNL Broadband subscription
continuously for past six months as on 01.11.2008. The scheme shall be available for all
Broadband plans.However after November08, all customers would get back to their usual free download limit.
Overview of Download/Upload Limit
|
Name of Plan
|
Normal Usage limit
|
Usage limit during November
|
| Home 125 | 150 MB | 300 MB |
| Home 250 | 1.0 GB | 2.0 GB |
| Home 500 | 2.5 GB | 5.0 GB |
| Home 500 C | 1.5GB | 3.0 GB |
| Home 500 C+ | 2.5GB | 5.0GB |
| Home 1000 | 5.0GB | 10.0GB |
Subscribers of Unlimited plan would be disappointed, as there no double bandwidth offer for them. This offer is is applicable all over india, however your local exchange might deny this as they must not received “official communication” regarding this. For the record, here is the official Letter that BSNL Head office, Delhi is sending to all its circle offices. This letter is signed by P.K.Shah,DGM (Broadband Service,BSNL.Corporate Office. so this is should be enough proof.
If Bsnl still denies your free usage, take Print-out of below letter and show it to concerned officials. Surely, they can’t deny a official Letter 
Broadband Cell Second Floor
Bharat Sanchar Bhawan
Janpath New Delhi ? 110001
Tel: 91-11-23710183
Fax: 91-11-23734052
__________________________________________________ ___________________
No: 64-03/08 Broadband Dated: 22.10.2008
To.
1.All Head of Circles/Metro District
2.GM (CMTS/Mktg) BSNL.CO.
Sub: Promotional Scheme for Broadband Customers as Dipawali Bonus.Approval of competent authority is here by conveyed for extending Dipawali
scheme for BSNL Broadband customers who have BSNL Broadband subscription
continuously for past six months as on 01.11.2008. The scheme shall be available for all
Broadband plans.1)In the month of November, the subscribers shall be permitted to avail double usage
of free download i.e. twice of what is available in the plan normally. The scheme shall
be applicable for all Broadband Plans?.2)All plan change requests received in the month of November shall be made effective
from 1 st of December?.3) The scheme benefits shall be available only for customers who remain active
throughout November 2008.You are requested to kindly give wide spread publicity to this scheme through
messages in SMS, IVRS etc, in addition to other print and electronic media.The message for mobile customers is furnished below.
* Dear customers, Avail double usage of free download for all BSNL Broadband
plans in the month of November 2008 as one time Dipawali Bonus.(P.K.Shah)
DGM (Broadband Service)
BSNL.Corporate Office.
Happy Diwali & Enjoy Downloading……
[Update] The Offer is now over as it was valid only during november month, hope you enjoyed doubled Usage.
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Linux is a stable OpenSource Operating system.It has a ability to run for long hours and crashes are rarely seen.On top of it, it has a inbuilt scheduler which is robust and it never misses tasks. All this Characteristics make Linux a perfect choice for downloading. Yeah almost perfect choice (discussed later).
In This Guide we would learn how to smartly schedule downloads. This way files would be automatically downloaded while you sleep. This Guide is mainly for BSNL/MTNL broadband subscribers. I have Tried to prescribe a general procedure which is applicable on all major Distributions.so distribution specific goodies are not discussed here.
Mainly there are two mode of this, you need to pick a method which applies to you.
Crond reads tasks from crontab, anything you write in your crontab with proper syntax will be read & excuted by crond. Crontab as name suggests, is basically a file where sheduled tasks are arranged in tabular forum.The syntax of crontab is fairly simple.
| Minutes | Hours | Day | Month | Day of the month | command |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| enter the minutes part of time, legal values 0-60 | Enter the hours, in 24hr format. legal values 0-24 | Enter the Day number starting from Monday, legal values 0-7 | Enter the month,legal values 1-12 | Enter a Date, legal values 1-31 | Command you want to execute at scheduled time |
use command “visudo” to edit crontab.it would load a editor depending upon your $EDITOR variable. on Ubuntu you would get nano
how to use nano(easy)
how to use vi (advanced)
Things Which are common among both methods
1) Create a simple text file in your home folder and name it “downloads.txt” & notedown its full path. Insert the *Direct* links of files you want to download into this newly created file. The files given in this would be downloaded by wget automactically.wget can handle http & ftp downloads. After download completes remove the link and enter new ones. insert one link per line. Remember to add direct link only.
2) If you use torrents, install your torrent client and notedown its full path to its binary. you can use “whereis” command to find its exact location. generally its /usr/share/sbin. If you are looking for worthy torrent clients, look for deluge or azurus now vuze
1) I wrote a simple Shell script for rebooting router. it works nicely on D-link GLB 502T. although you may need to change userid,password & command values.copy paste this script in a file and save it as router-reboot.sh. make it excutable by
chmod a+x router-reboot.sh
#!/bin/sh ############################################# #Script Written By Gaurish Sharma #change the password,userid & command values with your own set #the default password & username # in most cased is 'admin' #use it in terminal as sh router-reboot.sh | telnet #(C) GaurishSharma.com ############################################# add='open 192.168.1.1' userid='root' password='your_passoword' command='reboot' echo $add sleep 1 echo $userid sleep 1 echo $password sleep 1 echo $command sleep 1
2) Open Terminal and enter “crontab -e”. enter the following in your crontab and save it
# m h dom mon dow command # Reboot Entry, please replace with correct path 10 2 * * * cd /home/gaurish/scripts && sh router-reboot.sh | telnet # Start Torrent client, please replace with correct path of your router 12 2 * * * DISPLAY=:0.0 /opt/azureus/azureus # Downloads via wget, Please replace with corrent path 13 2 * * * wget -ci /home/gaurish/downloads.txt # Reboot Entry, please replace with correct path 50 7 * * * cd /home/gaurish/scripts && sh router-reboot.sh | telnet
3) Now we need to enter command to shutdown computer everyday at 7.51AM.this only can be done via root user. so now the enter command as “sudo crontab -e” and Insert this line.
50 7 * * * /sbin/shutdown -h 0
4) (Optional) you can install mailx package to see the log of what happened while you were sleeping
1) we would be using default command which you use to dial to internet. on most cases its pon dsl-provider for connectinig and poff for disconnection . in case the command are diffrent on your machine please replace them.
2) Open Terminal and enter “crontab -e” now paste the following in it
# m h dom mon dow command # Start Torrent client, please replace with correct path of your torrent program 10 2 * * * DISPLAY=:0.0 /opt/azureus/azureus # please replace with correct path of download.txt 13 2 * * * wget -ci /home/gaurish/downloads.txt
3) Now we need to use root crontab, use “sudo crontab -e” to access it.
10 2 * * * /usr/bin/pon dsl-provider 49 7 * * * /usr/bin/poff 50 7 * * * /sbin/shutdown -h 0
4) (Optional) you can install mailx package to see the log of what happened while you were sleeping.
What you are missing in Linux, comparing to windows?
In starting of this post i said, almost perfect choice for downloading. so you gotta missing something. which is ability to power on your PC automatically.
I am still searching for a method to start a Linux box automatically at a specific time.
As a workaround you can do the same thing via your BIOS, but a limited no of BIOS support this. so either leave your machine running with monitor turn off or use the BIOS trick.
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