Over the past few weeks, my life has been kind of topsy turvy. I have always been the proverbial night owl; never seen the rising sun in ages. However, BSNL has changed my life to an extent. I wake up early mornings to be able to catch the “free time”. Jokes apart, the download limits are pathetic.

What have I been doing with my broadband? Contrary to BSNL’s assertions,there is minimal use of peer to peer file sharing. At best, I am trying to download Kubuntu- the KDE based Ubuntu. I can be classified as a LEECHER in torrent lingo- though howsoever I desire to seed the files, I become aware of the huge usage charges that I would have to pay.

In anycase, over the past few weeks, I have been scouring around the Internet for information. Agreed that there is a huge repository of information- one can prevent himself from information deluge by being selective. For example, I rely on Digg to update me on Technology.

This is the era of open source and open access to information. Some medical journals allow free access for ip’s originating from Indian subcontinent which otherwise in print cost is prohibitive. However, the icing on the cake goes to Public Library of Science ( Plos ) which believes in true open access; in a way they have made an excellent resource totally free of cost.

The arguments for or against Open Access is totally out of scope here; the merits of the case rest on the fact that broadband has allowed the information at a faster rate.

Apart from the email or routine upload of my digital camera pictures on to Flickr, I discovered Skype. It has been there for quite sometime now- the hoopla seems to have died down. However, there have been many instances which show that how Skype has ushered in free pc to pc phone calls ( VoIP) and people from all over the world managing their businesses and lives. Had Ebay not taken over Skype, it was in the sidelines taking on competition to Yahoo’s Net2Phone and Google talk.

All this and more. Websites have hosted streaming audios and videos for desirious students to participate in debates or watch surgical operations. A dedicated website has various heart sounds online; hard to come by in clinical practise, I was able to fine tune myself to the topic at hand. (Arguably not my interest at all-Orthopaedics and Surgery rules my life!)

I remember the old dial up which was appropriately called as www or World Wide Wait. Truly we have come from those horror times; but as Rajesh Jain writes back and I quote:

” That same stifling is now being seen in broadband. We delight in calling 256 Kbps as broadband when countries like Japan and South Korea talk of speeds 10-20 times higher. This is where we lack imagination. We think of broadband as just a high-speed data line when it is really a fundamental building block for tomorrow’s world. Whether it is education or healthcare, we have to reinvent processes and workflows if we have to make up for all those lost decades – and a state-of-the-art digital infrastructure is one way to catch up and leapfrog.”

How very true. I would love to know as to how Internet has changed YOUR life- it would be illuminating to know your perspective too. As they say, its only our imagination that limits us- there is a lot that we can learn and gain; in a way contribute back to the same society that brings us on to this state.

Mr Maran- you are surely stuck in a time warp. Accept this fact. 

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Tags: Broadband, BSNL, File Sharing, Google, India, Internet, Open Source, Opera, Peer to peer, Yahoo