It beats the logic to submit proposals for charging licence fees from the ISP’s (specially category C providers). Remember folks, this is the year of “broadband” and as usual, the Government is deluding itself to sign up “millions of subscribers”. The exact details have not tumbled out but this was serious enough to be posted here.
I believe that the ISP’s who lease out bandwidth and then resell the same under their own brands would be the hardest hit. This means your Sify Broadband and it’s spawns. The increased licencing fees would have to be passed on to customers; remember folks, the same pissed off people who are already reeling under unreliable services.
This would only serve to alienate the computing masses and perhaps drive more customers towards category A providers like BSNL. Is this a ploy to gain the critical mass? This is what we could never know. Since Reliance is planning for a nationwide roll out, it would want to target the customers suffering from Sify and the only way to do that is to create conditions to make it unviable for the small town player to provide services on an even platform. While these could be perfect conspiracy theories, it holds valid on this account, in my opinion.
More details on the Slimes of India.
Internet PC to PC calls would be specially targetted at. With increasing broadband penetration- well there are certain number of subscribers for sure, they have discovered the joys of using Skype for extended chat sessions. This makes it a loss making proposition for the entrenched telecom operators whose massive investments in traditional phone lines would be hurt. A classical case of the industry opposing the roll out of a new technology that could benefit the masses.
What could at best be offered (and TRAI could have easily done) was to allow these competing technologies in the market and give the freedom of choice to customers. We could have easily seen the likes of Vonage in India, Skype like thingy on Wifi hotspots and extended telephone lines connected to PC’s or Broadband plug in points. All these benefits have been swiped under the carpet.
The ISP Association is rightly crying wolf over the loss of oppurtunity. But then, what have they done to improve services in their own backyard? Nothing. I remember the time when I was desperate to contact the association so that they could collectively define what broadband could be. No answer. This is what you get when you ignore the power of the blog!
Jokes apart, it would be terrible in the current scenario if the proposals get accepted by Department of Telecom in the present shape. The small town charlie would have to pay higher access fees for his simple joys of seeing two people fornicating.
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