Bharat Telecom 2Mbs internet package for Rs280 to Mauritians

Bharat Telecom Ltd (BTL) is the newest ISP in Mauritius which will provide internet connection at 2Mbs along with 40 TV channels for only Rs280 per month. That’s not all the good news because you don’t even need to have a telephone line in your house to access their services; all you need is your electricity line!

So far, Mauritius Telecom (MT) was the only ISP to provide a reliable internet connection but because of lack of competition, they were getting away charging huge fees for their services. Anyway before you could be browsing the net, you would need a phone line first and to get one, you would need to pay Rs2000 + VAT on top of a refundable Rs1000 deposit. You are also required to pay a monthly rental charge of Rs90 + VAT whether or not you make any calls. Once this has been settled, you would then need to pay for broadband installation to get your internet package and that’s another Rs2000 + VAT. The 2Mbs internet package costs Rs1500 per month and they’re going to charge you one month in advance as well. So that’s a total of Rs7300 that I had to fork out in January 2012 just to surf at a decent speed at home.

With Bharat Telecom (BT), you will get the same 2Mbs internet connection for Rs280 + VAT and 40 TV channels as well. MyT only give you 30 channels and most of them are a waste of time to be honest. I know many people who’ve never even looked at those channels despite having them for months/years because they are crap. Pricewise this looks very tempting because it nearly 5 times less than what you would pay for MyT but there’s another reason why Bharat Telecom might be a better service for internet after all; their services will be provided by fibre optic cables rather than the copper telephone line. This means that they will be more reliable and capable of bigger bandwidth.

Main differences between the two packages

			Mauritius Telecom	Bharat Telecom
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Phone line installation	Rs2000 + VAT (one off)	N/A
Phone line rental	Rs90 + VAT (monthly)	N/A
Internet installation	Rs2000 + VAT (one off)	Unknown
2 Mbs internet package	Rs1500			Rs280 + VAT = Rs329
TV Channels		30			40
Transport		Telephone copper line	Fibre optic cable
Bandwidth restriction	None			Unknown

As you can see, BT is the clear winner. However, they have not yet released whether there will be any installation costs and how much they will be. The proposed TV channels are:

TFI, Le Groupe France Télévision, Le Groupe M6, TV5, Star Plus, Star Gold, Z Cinema, Z TV, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild, Universal Channel, Warner Bros TV, ESPN et ESPN Classic

For those you have recently joined MyT like myself, unfortunately we will have to stay with them until our 1 year contract finishes but chances are that they will have to cut down their tariffs otherwise they will lose a lot of their previous customers.

If you’ll be switching to Bharat Telecom too, let us know in the comments who your current ISP is and how long you’ve been with them.