Monthly Archives: April 2006

Chinese invasion

Leave a reply

This post is a continuation on the other previous ones. China deserves merit, in my opinion, because I don’t trust them. To have them in our borders is an invitation for disaster.

Claude Arpi on Rediff points to the dangerous Chinese symptoms who seem to plan in advance and then inflict damage to the adversary. The modern warfare has changed drastically, but the basic principles remain the same as enunciated by Sun Tzu in his seminal work on The Art of War.

Why then Chinese Art of War and Telecom?

The answer lies in Claude Arpi’s work. Mind you. It’s scary and the bureaucrats used to plush life ought to understand the gravity of the same. Claude writes:

Terrorism is of course mentioned the most often, but it is just one of the many ways of unconventional warfare identified by Unrestricted Warfare. To cite a few others:

  • Financial war is a form of non-military warfare which is just as terribly destructive as a bloody war, but in which no blood is actually shed;
  • Technological warfare (creating monopolies by setting standards independently);
  • Resources warfare (grabbing riches by plundering stores of resources);
  • International law warfare (seizing the earliest opportunity to set up regulations).

    • It is apparent that Chinese are hell bent on destroying whatever little enterpise we might have in telecom equipment. By hoisting their standards on us, they are causing a grave damage to India in the long run.

    What is the Unrestricted Warfare that I just mentioned? You’d have to download the pdf file (328kb) and read it for yourself. It makes for a fascinating read.

    Broadband in India: WimaX ready?

    16 Replies

    The last mile access is the holy grail; this is one of the most contentious issues across the world as to how to bridge the gap.

    There are many cities in US which haven’t yet been served with Broadband. Predictably, this has given rise to the digital haves and have nots and it isn’t surprising to see ISP’s worse than our very own BSNL.

    However, the thrust of the post isn’t ISP bashing. It’s about newer technologies that have made their presence felt. The first among those has been WiFi or Wireless Fidelty. There has been a confusing string of names and I wouldn’t go in the technical details. I’d rather focus on the policy aspects of implementation.

    WiFi has been recently de licenced by the “improved” version of the Telecom Policy. Predictably, there were a lot of “anal-ysts” who were crowing hoarse about the implications. That it would usher us in the information age all at once. It hasn’t happened over the past 1+ year and I see/ read no signs of the same.

    WiFi is limited in extent to what we call as a “hotspot”. Anyone can set up a wireless router to broadband connection and serve it up. This trend hasn’t really caught up in India. Infrastructure/ pricing hassles apart, the biggest drawback of WiFi is the limited range it can offer. Plus, the equipment et al ought to be in “Line of Sight”. Not to mention the slow access speeds.

    To overcome these hassles, the younger sibling of WiFi, WiMaX was announced. Theoretically speaking, it can serve speeds UPTO 70Mbps and doesn’t need the “line of sight” for it’s implementation.

    However, there are three major issues with this.

  • Intel is primarily the moving force behind WiMax. This means that it would want to milk back it’s patented technology. It would further drive up the costs associated with implementation. I am not comfortable with a second grade company dictating the prices/ technology. Intel wants the WiMax to come mainstream via it’s chips in computers and laptops. It’s ViV (pronounced “five”) chip for home entertainment has come as cropper and this by all means would definitely fail to take off as expected.
  • The spectrum. Where the F*** we have it? Wi Max can be implemented on the same cell towers as for mobiles. The telcos are squabbling for 3G licences. Would they be willing to invest in serious money for WiMaX which would compete with 3G, if and when it is announced?
  • WiMax isn’t tested technology. The predicted date for it’s test launch is somewhere in 2007. Theoratically, it does sound good. However, once you have thousands of customers being served, it would slow down to a crawl. Depending on the conditions, at best, it can deliver 500k- 1Mbps. This is again highly idealised scenario. It would make sense only if it can deliver it’s promise beyond what the landlines currently offer.

    • With the present immersive content available online, I doubt whether WiMaX can really have any impact on access.

    You could as well as toss coins about the utility of the same. At best, it can be used in war time scenarios- with WiMaX transmitters embedded deep in bunkers; maintain the crucial data links among the commanders. Or setting up WiMaX systems for the armed forces in dreary areas. Who would mind streaming porn?

    The large scale implementation of WiFi in India is being planned for Pune, near Mumbai. There hasn’t been any disclosure of the details as yet, but if it does happen, it would be the first city in India to have WiFi on such a scale. The biggest hitch is that the customer base is ill defined. The Pune Municipal Corporation has estimated that there are approximately 1 lakh laptop owners. They have assumed that ALL of them would subscribe to WiFi. Which in my opinion is sheer stupidity. The pricing details et al would have to be attractive enough to make it happen. Further, they would have to bank on the increased customer base using computers.

    We are still far away from REAL BROADBAND. Everything boils down to spectrum availability and final price. India isn’t WiMax ready; till the time Wireless can come up with something better, I believe that it would be more prudent to focus on increasing the landline base.

    Institutionalised stupidity

    Leave a reply

    I could have used harsher words.

    Business Standard has the lead story which says that Chinese firms would not be screened for possible threat to the nation.

    This will clear the air over the proposal of Huawei Telecommunications, which had sought permission to set up a manufacturing unit in India about two years ago. Its application is still hanging fire.

    I have already mentioned about the same earlier on the blog and does not merit any repetition. It’s not about being paranoid, just that we ought to be much more careful about the kind of investments we are attracting.

    This definitely has more political and economic ramifications than you can imagine. Increasing foreign direct investment undermines the local currency. Further, it plays havoc with Capital Controls. Much of the “easy money” that is flowing in the stock markets (admittedly with oppurtune strong quaterly results) has fuelled the speculation in stock markets and has nothing to do with the “fundamentals”.

    This decision marks the reversal of long held BJP policy of not allowing more than mandated FDI in chosen sectors and ensuring that majority stake remains with the Indians. Unfortunately, BJP as a unit lies in tatters, which is unable to exert itself in any direction.

    Congress would definitely lead the nation to ruin. If job quotas aren’t sufficient, India is being sold piecemeal under WTO pressures. It would be out of scope here though, to comment on the process.

    It would do us much good, if we have capital controls (persist with them instead of abolishing them as planned by 2009), restricted FDI in crucial sectors, state investment in infrastructure and selling off the loss making Public Sector Units. In other words, fiscal prudence and not the populism that seems to be the short cut to the vote bank. And keeping a strict vigil on the Chinese entry of goods.

    Unless people demand and assert their rights, there won’t be any action on the ground. The rights have to be tempered with knowledge, as to how the entry of foreign firms would lead to havoc with our societal culture and ethos. In telecommunications, our security.