Monthly Archive for December, 2005

A small update

Published on 29th Dec 2005 in General Thoughts and Personal Experiences. 0 Comments Tags: .

Somehow, the emerging VoIP skipped out of my mind.

The next year is definitely going to be big for the same. Particularly ever since it’s moving in the mainstream. Expect BSNL to lock you out or persist with assinine limits.

Before I end, I came across a site dedicated to Mobile news and happenings (Mobile Pundit). Sadly, it again remains a “news aggregator”, much like the simple folks in Content Sutra.

What we need here is some objective commentary on the emerging telecom scenario. For that matter, I would rate the mainstream media’s efforts are substandard to highlight the mess in telecom.

If you care for any intellectual stimulation, I would direct you to this post by Atanu Dey on the way Mobile Phones would bring about a change in the way we access information. It’s not a blanket endorsement; yet you would get a reasonable idea as to how mobile phones can add more meaning to our lives.

Recall 2005 Part 3

Published on 28th Dec 2005 in General Thoughts and Indian Telecom. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Miscellaneous:

Finally, a ring side view of the Telecom circus. Aptly proved by concerned people in Department of Telecom indulging in a tug of war with TRAI. There have been legal representations and intepretations about the TRAI’s mandated role; companies keeping their lawyers busy for filing in Supreme Court against TDSAT or TRAI or Government of India; even against each other.

Reliance’s break up was another major happening; I am loath to accept the fact that “youth icon” Anil Ambani hasn’t been able to deliver the goods. So far. They too have become “also rans” in the mobile sweep stakes. There was a lot of press devoted to Reliance; it’s complicated share holding pattern and behind the scenes players. It was as if the national soap opera unfolding; over shadowing even another spectacle of the Birla vs Lodha.

The only point of concern is the ubridled entry of the foreign players in Indian Telecom market. Airtel hived off it’s stake to Vodafone; difficult to make a guess as to how much Bharti’s actually own the Airtel brand. I remember a full page coverage to Bharti “who gave away his network”; in effect outsourced the same. There has been no follow up post so I wouldn’t know as to how the experiment has fared.

The oligopolies have set in; long distance telephony has been opened up; there is talk about number portabilty; much vaunted “One India” plan to have a flat rate for long distance calling. The usual denials, objections et al. Media slugfest between the different Operator groups; Wifi and Wimax talk; Sivaskaran investing in AirCell and selling of his stakes etc etc.

For this year, this blog has decided to award “ass**** of the year” title to “ole geezer” in goverment service who claimed that broadband can run ONLY on Pentium 4 PC’s. Rejoice! Such “simple folks” make my blog worth it to rant against them.

On a personal front, I would like to thank you all to come here; contribute your ideas and give me enough reason to keep blogging about Telecom. It has been a year of personal milestones for Vinu Thomas.com which saw recored 20,000 posts recently. I was proudly associated with the same as a “moderator”; something that no one relishes. Way to go Guys! The forums have become a single point source for everything related to BSNL broadband and the present moderators are doing absolutely a fantastic job. Admittedly, ISP shoutbox over there was my baby; sadly no one uses it effectively to abuse their ISP’s. Still glad that it’s hanging in there because of the novelty of the idea! Keep up the good work guys!

Finally, I feel happy to be independently blogging about the telecom shifts and shakes in India. The traffic stats have picked up and despite the obvious allurements, this blog is free of advertising. It costs us money to pay for the bandwidth as well as the backups et al. For the time being, we have been subsiding this via other websites to keep this ad free. A request to you all to click on the ads on the main Techwhack channel to keep the status quo.

Despite all this, we move on. Even in our own private spheres, the life shouldn’t stand still. Personally speaking, humans are resistant to change. We feel afraid of the changes and rather leave the life stale. We don’t realise the potential that newer techologies can have to solve the problem of old with new. Let’s change this mindset.

A Happy New Year to you all.

Recall 2005 Part 2

Published on 28th Dec 2005 in General Thoughts and Indian Telecom. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Broadband

Singularly, we can call 2005 as the “year of broadband”. Far from a crappy dial up we have jumped to somewhat tolerable Internet access. Even if it is kbps.

BSNL has the lion’s share. Of course, it’s charging the customers a “monopoly tax”. With almost next to nil customer service to boot and “glorified son in laws” at the helm of affairs, there isn’t much of choice. The exisiting players are content to call whatever access speeds as “broadband”.

This year saw the high profile exit of Satyam from Sify. It was clear from the outset that they had been “misguided” to the latent demand of access. Indeed, demand had been there but it can be best described as a “F***ed up exprience” for both customers and Satyam. Satyam is a NASDAQ listed company, I had no idea as to why were they persisting with the huge amount of negative press. In a way it’s good for them because it was clearly a lost case.

MTNL and Airtel too decided to go hog the DSL space. I believe that the jury is all out for Airtel. I am excited about the “unlimited” plans. Without any hassle of usage stats or counting your upload/ download limits. However, they could have easily taken the initiative and set the tone and pace for the other companies to follow. It wouldn’t have cost them much to offer higher access speeds thus raising the stake for BSNL and MTNL. The main advertising campaign was for the “low monthly rentals” which sent the media “anal-ysts” (pun intended) in raptures. Oh my God! Broadband at never seen before rates! Without realising the fact that your total cost of ownership is far more than what is advertised.

The regulator slept over. Advertising Council slept over. Consumer organisations slept over. In this business of “sleeping together”, the end consumer is at a loss. Kbps level speeds means that promised goodies like IPTV and Video on Demand would take almost forever. Perhaps by end of next year. As BSNL cries hoarse about signing up “millions of consumers” for “broadband”, it’s the crappy Chinese modems that’s runing the day for the consumers.

What holds the key for next year? One word. Reliance. If the promised venture comes through, we might see Microsoft’s set top boxes on our TV’s. Of course, Reliance is screwing up on the same. In a way, it could have developed a set top box itself, loaded up Linux and “Freevo” on that and made money. Further, it could have dictated the prices for the set top boxes; while others would have slugged on proprietary formats. Another instance of wrong planning and implementation. Well, it is rumoured that Microsoft might seed it’s virus in India soon via TV’s. Let’s see how things work out.

BSNL might improve it’s access or play a long term game by providing fibre optic connectivity. It already has a head start and in the broadband slugfest, it’s surely going to win the game. Atleast in the near future. Others are just hanging on waiting for the big elusive “O”. Broadband nirvana maynot happen soon. Not in the year 2006 for sure.

Recall 2005. Part 1

Published on 28th Dec 2005 in General Thoughts. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Mobiles:

The quest for consumer has been brought in focus. As the metros become saturated, the focus is slowly shifting to rural areas. Arguably, the mobile phones increase the GDP of the nation. However, a pertinent point needs to be made.

The rural consumption can effectively measured by the consumption of food grains. I remember, there was a debate to the same effect in Business Standard. The food grains consumption has been decreasing over a period of time; meaning thereby that there is less of disposable cash. Further, health care costs account for the rural indebtedness.

I wouldn’t like to paint a rosy picture of “millions” of subscribers here. For arguments sake, in a nation of billion if 100 million ultimately have mobile phones, it means that 1 in every 10 Indian is connected. This is highly idealised statistic because, I have been arguing on this blog that companies don’t follow a universally accepted method of counting the subscribers. Further, there is no independent verification of the same. It means that numbers are highly suspect. Probably, the numbers are hyped up to either increase the valuation or hoard up spectrum. (Spectrum allocation increases as the subscriber base increases).

In this age of increasing health care costs, chronic disease burden, malnutrition et al take their toll. I really wonder whether the rural folk would have enough cash to dispense the money to go mobile. There is a strong possibility that current target is the low spending customer in the fringes of metros; consequently a high demand for second hand mobiles in these areas. Further, the marketing thrust is more active in “category B and C” towns which have remained out of the marketing radar. Hence, recent spate to introduce bundled low cost “chinese” phones. Uugh!

Given the foregoing account, it is clear that mobile applications and add ons are severly limited to a miniscule percentage of “high end mobiles”. MMS, Email Surfing, Blackberry’s or Mobile Portals etc. That leaves out a vast majority of people who use mobiles mainly for voice applications. Or at times, log on to the SMS mania on the various TV channels. As a result, the Average Revenue Per User or ARPU drags down despite the fact that “high end” applications are pricey and afford a revenue stream in the absence of an alternative to the end user. That’s why the one uppance for 3G spectrum.

How would be the mobile applications like “mobile search” and “GPRS” or “3G” services be more relevant? Government of India’s plans to auction off 3G spectrum goes contrary to the assertions made here. For all, we’d be just subsiding the companies’s efforts to acquire spectrum. Which again is assinine to implement given the market realities are contrary to the telecom companies plans. Further, the mobile content development is still in it’s infancy; I can hardly think of 2/3 companies at present. Indeed, there is huge market for the same; but the current estimates are being hyped up. An average joe would settle in for a basic handset without the frills. This means that companies would have to spend huge amount of money in advertisements to create a demand; jacking up the prices unneccesarily.

Basically, there is no originality in the telecom market. Each one has “me-too” plans which means that no telecom operator can claim exclusivity.

Well, we don’t have much choice either isn’t it?

GSM-Confusions galore!

Published on 28th Dec 2005 in General Thoughts and Indian Telecom. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

If we need proof enough about the growing market of GSM mobiles, you just have to check out the various “plans”. Each one seems to be tempting than the other; all kinds of charges thrown in; free this and free that; daily rentals; the billing cycles;monthly plans; monthly plan rentals; phew!

My travails started when my trusty Nokia handset went kaput. I believe, my dog had a role to play in it. Specially when he just revels in chewing it to bits. It outlived all the horrors subjected to it and one fine day it just went dead like a BSNL landline. After frantic efforts, I managed to get it powered on and retrieve my address book. That was when the whole issue came in focus.

For long, I have bet on CDMA; never faced any issue of congestion or call drops. It is one of the cheapest mode of communication while roaming. Thanks to Reliance’s widespread reach. Plus of course, rock bottom tariffs and simplistic plans. I was a satisfied customer. However, it was a BIG issue when the GSM phones started their marketing onslaught. Ring tones have been a BIG hit in recent times. Reliance favoured poorly. Then finding a Reliance customer was statistically insignificant. Almost everyone I knew has GSM phones. Another factor that weighed in prominently was the free SMS. For a nominal amount, I could go on a messaging binge. SMS definitely is expensive in Reliance.

I mustered up enough courage to explore the various possibilities. Airtel has a crappy office in my city; minimal attention to details and none of the “executives” seemed to be interested in spelling out plans. I gave it up in disgust. Hutch has excellent showromm ambience with pink splashed over. I have no idea as to why are they obessed with the pink tongued pug. However, I wasn’t happy with the way the plans were communicated. The person telling me didn’t have any clear idea as to help me to choose plans according to my needs. Hutch seems to have a lot of hidden charges; postpaid to prepaid migration is a pain in the wrong place. Hutch too ran out of contention.

Argubaly, BSNL has the cheapest GSM service. However, I am not a brave person; I decided not to explore the government service at all. There are enough stories doing the rounds that SMS’s move at snail’s pace. Clearly, BSNL is a company stepped back in time.

Finally, I settled in for Spice. Perhaps, it was the discounted “corporate” scheme which made calling within the group free of cost. Further, discounted calling rates to other mobiles and SMS pack. It comes with all the frills what the “rivals” are offering.

Still, the big hassle is multiplicity of plans. If the GSM operators need to be taken seriously, they ought to have policies in place to communicate effectively. Including trained personnel who have the ability to spell out everything clearly. I was absolutely aghast when the Airtel “executive” claimed that GPRS speeds touches 115kbps. Well, no point in arguing about the “ideal case scenario”. But then, they did palm off a sucker who wanted to invest in mobile wireless.

There are enough of them to keep the companies in business for a long time.

Mobile operators need to tone up

Published on 26th Dec 2005 in General Thoughts. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Recently, I decided to check out the different websites for mobile operators. Here’s my take.

Hutch: An oversized pink tongued Chinese pug awaits you here. The tarriff plans are confusing; it’s difficult to navigate the website and has minimal information on the usage patterns. Or any firm details as to your monthly outgo on various talk plans.

Airtel: Sunil Bharti’s baby. Has prominent links to various services. Including glorified “vision”. The link to various tarriff plans sits back neatly. However, it suffers from the same confusion as Hutch. Maybe, the multiplicity of the plans overwhelms and confuses the new user.

Reliance: Uses a lot of flash as the other websites making it very data intensive. For users still on dial up, this is stupidity. I couldn’t find any “low graphics” version for these three websites. Which is BIG minus. The details are neatly laid out; includinga nifty “handset introduction” feature. Uses a lot of flash here too. I have a BIG issue with this site because it doesnot render itself properly with Opera. Not web standards compliant?

Tata: I must congratulate them to make a neat web site here; some might say that it’s as staid as their telecom service. There are blinking links to their advertisement campaigns; obviously a flawed design concept. However, Tata’s score over others here. They have minimal talk plans and each plan is listed in detail. Easiest to follow and would load up quickly even on a BSNL dial up! The handset’s have link to a Java Script which lists the main features of the handsets.

Here Hutch majorly fails to mention the bundled offer of Motorola C115. Admittedly, it’s got weird looks but it’s been designed for functionality than pizzazz. In any case, it’s easier to get the phone’s software flashed to accept any other sim card. By default, it keeps the users locked in to Hutch network for 8 months.(As the local dealer claimed here in my home town).I have no means of confirming or refuting this as it wasn’t mentioned in their site.

Reliance, despite the huge flashy thingy, fails to mention the most important technical features of the handsets. Namely, the talk time and standby time for the battery. If this is deliberate overlook, it’s in excusable. I randomly checked three different handsets and all 3 failed to mention these parameters.

Airtel, Hutch and Reliance fail to mention clearly about their talk plans. This despite TRAI’s order (the toothless regulator), which made it mandatory to introduce software selection so that people could use the same to select the plan of their choice. Evidently, the websites don’t get updated regularly. Airtel introduced lifetime warranty calling card of Rs 999. This wasn’t mentioned on their website when the last time I checked (25th Dec.). Ditto for Hutch. SHAME!

It’s a clear reflection of the ineptitude. Perhaps they could hire better web masters too. Or update it frequently too.

Curiously, data plans for GPRS in Hutch was mentioned for “corporates”. Well, no home users? Or would a prospective customer be put off with the mention on their website? They should surely look in this aspect.

Finally, only Reliance links prominently to their email. Airtel has a web form that needs to be filled up. I couldn’t find anything for Tata’s or Hutch. Well, you can draw your own coclusions.

E Crap

Published on 26th Dec 2005 in General Thoughts. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

A lot has been sold to us about “e-this” and “e-that”. However, over a period of time, I am actually turning cynical about the whole “e charade”.

A relook at the priorties would be humbling enough. For example, as the political system goes bust and the infrastructure crumbling, I doubt whether any Government would actually devote any attention to improving the work flow and rely instead on the file work instead.

E governance in it’s avatar means downloading forms from Internet. Try and get any Government official to respond and they equate email with the old fashioned file work. Which effectively means that it’s next to impossible to make them respond. I really wonder as to how the Government of India would respond to the challanges of 21st Century.

Similarly, I have been reading about the “e commerce”; this dream remains unfulfilled. The neighbourhood kirana shop (grocery store) doesn’t have computers and they don’t have broadband either. Nor do they have any website where they can track orders. Such was the fantasy spun by the media without taking in the ground realities.

Similarly banks have invested heavy and serious money to facilitate online transactions. However, in the absence of any tie ups, it becomes extremely difficult to transfer cash to other banks electronically. This, of course, makes the whole thing meaningless. Step in any bank and you would see glorified data entry workers inanely typing away. This raises secuirty issues too after the phising attacks and the fact that most of the people predominantly use Internet Explorer. The crappiest piece of software ever written.

E mails to any government official don’t elicit any reply or even acknowledgement. For long, I was trying to elicit a valid response from National Library of Medicine to provide eletronic access to resources. However brain dead they are, the emails repeatedly bounced back! In any case, BSNL’s officials fail to respond to any queries. Despite the fact that most of the officials have their emails listed online.

Similary, websites are supposed to articulate the “vision” and the purpose of the government. The reality is far from ideals. Open up any website of GoI and you would mostly find miniscule information. For example, Ministry of Health fails to articulate the crumbling infrastructure or the fact that National Health programmes are in doldrums. I wouldn’t expect a jazzed up flash thingy in-your-face-kinds but some degree of information does need to be conveyed.

In the hoopla about the broadband, “E” initiatives need to be taken in proper perspective before we jump to proclaim them. In my own view, I would rate Singapore’s e initiatives as the best I have come so far. It takes some hard work to make things work.