No official announcements have been made by Orange concerning My.T or Orange ADSL. However, Mr Krishna Oolun from ICTA has confirmed that My.T prices will also decrease very soon…
It was in the morning that the Minister of ICT announced these new prices, which will be applied as from this Sunday, the 1st March 2009. Read more on Le Mauricien. (Btw there seems to be lot of things happening on the 1st March? – by-election, no smoking & drinking, Carling Cup final & now this!)
Old offers
- 128Kbps 1G | Rs 650 | 1GB
- 128Kbps | Rs 750 | FUP
- 512Kbps | Rs 1360 | FUP
New offers
- 256Kbps 3G | Rs 434 | 3GB
- 512Kbps | Rs 750 | FUP
- 1Mbps | Rs 1360 | FUP
For ADSL Pro users, no increase in connection speed, but 256K 2GB is now 3GB with the price at Rs 800 instead of Rs 950. & 512K 4GB goes from Rs 1540 to Rs 1300 with bandwidth at 5GB.
My.T?
No mention of My.T! I wonder what Orange are cooking up? Will the speed double as well or else… is that the spectre of the FUP looming behind? So far everyone has been spared from its scythe… do you know anyone who got FUPed???
The Bottom Line
It turned out my predictions were wrong – the price decreases or speed hikes depending on how you choose it – were more considerable than expected. ADSL users should be pretty happy by now (with that 1Mbps!). But I’m still unconvinced. While we may be topping in Africa, we are still pretty much far behind the rest of the world. Blame it on our location, being cut-off & having only one submarine fibre cable. But there’s a small candle at the end of the tunnel – EASSY which will (hopefully) come into operation next year, in time for the 2010 WC.
Update: My.T speeds double!!! Update 2: 5:00AM on 01/03/2009 Update 3: Fair Usage Policy
Current My.T offers have seen their speed increase by twofold while two new offers has also been introduced which includes additional TV channels, cheaper international call rates & access to more than 500 VOD programmes. Note that the 1Mbps offer has been upgraded to 2Mbps!!! Wow! Read the official announcement by Orange here. (Thanks to Anonymous for the news!)
Old offers
- 256Kbps | Rs 750 | FUP
- 512Kbps | Rs 1360 | FUP
- 1Mbps | Rs 2740 | FUP
New offers
- 512Kbps | Rs 750 | FUP (current users only)
- 1Mbps | Rs 1360 | FUP (current users only)
- 2Mbps | Rs 2740 | FUP
- 512Kbps (+ 15 TV channels) | Rs 999 (VAT incl.) | FUP
- 1Mbps (+ 15 TV channels) | Rs 1699 (VAT incl.) | FUP
There’s a difference of around Rs 135 between the new offers.
Btw all existing My.T users will have a free trial of the new TV channels for 3 months, after which they can decide whether to apply for the new offers. & most of the TV channels won’t be available on the 1st March – they’ll be added regularly with all 15 channels expected to go on “air” by 15 April 2009.
Ex-512K users should be rejoicing right now with pretty decent “broadband” connection! Plus there’s also the 2Mbps connection on local servers, i.e. Akamai.
The much-awaited speed double... Notice that there are a new set of IPs, namely 41.136.XXX.XXX
What I was fearing is looking now more likely to happen. Check the My.T 2Mbps offer - it says the usage allowance is UNLIMITED. Yeah, totally unlimited, no FUP.
Reading between the lines, I can assume that... from now on, the FUP will be applied more strictly! :(
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