The thumb rule about home broadband is that the faster the speed coming to the good old router sitting at home, the better. Many years ago, we started out with “broadband” starting out at 64Kbps, and at that time, something on the lines of a 512kbps internet connection was considered truly high speed. Simpler times those. Then life slowly crept up beyond the 1Mbps mark. Fast forward a few years, and here we are, in the 1000Mbps territory—the 1Gbps speed mark. At this time, broadband service providers are offering internet plans at fairly affordable prices with speeds anywhere between 40Mbps and 1Gbps, depending on how much you are willing to spend.
Reliance JioFiber could perhaps be credited with making 1Gbps broadband plans fashionable. And in the marketing-speak, viable. The JioFiber plans were announced earlier this month, and users can choose from two 1Gbps options. The JioFiber Platinum 1Gbps plan is priced at Rs 3,999 per month which bundles 2,500GB of data every month. Then there is the highest spec Titanium plan which costs Rs 8,499 per month and offers 1Gbps speed with 5000GB data usage per month. As part of the Welcome Offer, Jio Fiber is offering Jio Home Gateway (worth Rs 5,000) and the Jio 4K set-top box (worth Rs 6,400) as well. Incidentally, if a user chooses to pay for the annual subscription in one go, they will get a 32-inch HD TV worth Rs 22,900 or a 43-inch 4K TV worth Rs 44,900. Incidentally, the annual plans also offer the Double Data benefit—Platinum gets 60,000GB per year while Titanium gets 120,000GB per year.
After all the realignment and re-packaging of the broadband plans, we now have a new flagship Airtel V-Fiber broadband plan. It is called the X-Stream Ultra plan, and this is the only option that offers 1Gbps speeds in the Airtel V-Fiber line-up. In fact, this new addition comes just after the launch of the Reliance Jio Fiber broadband plans with speeds up to 1Gbps. Till now, 300Mbps was the fastest that Airtel V-Fiber was offering across India. Interesting to note that Airtel is bundling no FUP data usage as well with this plan (this means 3,333GB per month as per the FUP policy), priced at Rs 3,999 per month. The Airtel Thanks benefits that are bundled with this plan include subscription to the Airtel Xstream Premium content, access to Zee 5 Premium content, one year of Amazon Prime subscription, three months of Netflix subscription and also a landline phone with unlimited local and STD calling.
Incidentally, the 1Gbps journey started long ago for Spectra. They have been offering 1Gbps plans in various regions for a while now—though there have been price revisions since. At present, Spectra has the Spectra Fastest plan which offers 1Gbps speed, 500GB data per month with unused data carry forward and is priced at Rs 1,549 a month—but a user can get unlimited data if they choose to play for semi-annual and annual plans.
Act Broadband is now offering a 1Gbps plan in certain cities, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. The Act Giga plan costs Rs 5,999 per month and bundles 2,500GB of data per month.
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