In the dog eat dog world of marketing, Media has resorted to several gimmicks.

If Mumbai disnt generate such flurry of activity as for the launch of newspapers there, I wouldnt have bothered. Times of India remains a stooge to capitalist’s interests. And so does Hindustan Times.

it now appears that Airtel tied up with Hindustan Times to distribute it’s newspapers Hindustan Times gets it’s assured subscribers and Airtel would get discounted ad rates.

All gung ho isnt it? Airtel would find it’s way in editorials soon; being hailed as the next best thing that happened to Indian Telecom phenomenon.

Watch this space.

Indian Telecom has it’s own sob story of litigations. For example, SC notice to BSNL on TRAI plea They decide who is the boss.

Anyway, there is an interesting story on development of new generation broadband. It is called as VDSL2 and optimises the current ADSL2 platform for data delivery. Is it the new wave of future? I am wondering whether we would see MbPs factor speeds as routine. One rumour that is floating around is that Reliance is planning similar moves to deliver data over Ethernet at speeds in excess of 100MbPs factor. Thats the kind of infrastructure they have readied as they plan to enter broadcasting in a big way. In any case, this isn’t awe inspiring as the Gigabit networks in HongKong. There entertainment industry is going gaga over the delivered content. India, alas is a developing country. Of course, I am swallowing my pride at 256Kbps.

As former colony of England, Indians and English share somewhat common mentality. Much maligned BSNL has comfort to know that British Telecom is accused of red tape; it has spread it’s tentacles of misery in every brits life. However, faced with imminent threat to it’s viability, it opened up it’s last mile to private players and reaping the benefits of being a monopoly. Mr Maran, read this BBC report which says that BT is now making one new broadband connection every 10 seconds.

I am happy at unlimited dial up. Admittedly, for the first time I experienced such a thing.

If there is anyway one needs to get confused about choosing a product for yourself, trust yourself to read newspapers regularly.

For example, this write up details the various packages available for broadband.

For an average user, broadband only means anything faster than a dial up. There is no objective criteria to call an Internet connection as “fast”. Still, we have data caps as low as 500MB with speeds of 512 KBps and marketed as “broadband”.

Enough! TRAI wake up and stop this nonsense. It’s happening right under your nose.