ISP price war in Lucknow

The slashing of Internet prices by Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Ltd (BSNL) may trigger a price war. While the two Internet service providers here, Satyam and Avadhonline maintained that BSNL was forced to slash prices because of the cheap packages offered by them, insiders claim the BSNL move may hot up the market. 

Anand Agarwal, MD, Avadhonline, told media people that while there was no immediate change in the various slabs offered rule out a cut in the near future. "We are pondering over the details and the possible fallout of the BSNL move and would take an appropriate decision in the near future". But since they are taking bandwidth from British telecom that has a gateway in Delhi, "a major slash should not be anticipated," said Avadhonline officials.

Satyam officials were, however non-committal regarding any price cut in their packages, which they claim, are "comfortably affordable".

The mood was upbeat at Gandhi Bhawan as BSNL officials claimed to have got an encouraging response for their new packages. The first day itself saw a large number of queries and many subscription forms were collected from its office.

Senior BSNL officials conceded that "the price cut by the National Internet Backbone (NIB) was a well thought out plan" and they were anticipating a price was among private Internet service providers.