Monthly Archives: November 2006

Broadband in India:Suppose if it is free?

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Sounds to good to be true?

I have a feeling that if a company could offer free broadband access to spur on the sales for it’s voice calls, it would go against the conventional line of thinking. For long, I have always felt that since the voice calls are on the declining trend (as per the telecom companies claims), broadband would be a lifeline in form a value added service.

However, despite all the hoopla of IPTV, Online Gaming and unlimited broadband (at a piflling 256k- a page loads slower than I pee) hasn’t taken off in this year. 2007 may still be full of false starts and promises.

Yet some companies in UK are promising “free broadband” with some talk plans. How good is it? A recent story in BBC underlines this point. It says that users of “free broadband” are less than happy. The primary reason seems to be more people signing up than the exchanges can support.

A “quote” from the story:

However, it’s disappointing to see that the majority of providers are failing to accompany the growth in customers numbers by sufficient growth in customer service operations, and the required investment in their technology, to ensure that they are looking after customer needs in an acceptable manner.

Interestingly, despite the fact that British Telecom has been opened up for the last mile access to the private players, it has actually increased BT’s revenues. Apart from earning revenue from the private players, it can market it’s own plans aggressively. It takes hard work but then the boffins in India expect you to pay and not get the service in return. British Telecom is the “baap” of BSNL- the illgotten progeny that refuses to part away it’s “bastardious” ways of dealing with it’s customers.

Free Broadband may remain a pipe dream. Well until the time the critical mass can support the offer. Computers are still pricey for most and would remain out of reach for majority. And so would the digital divide grow and grow till it is unmanageable.

Sify Broadband: Kick their ass

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This is arguably the most important judgement in recent times. Ankur Raheja has won a case in the consumer court against Sify Broadband on grounds of deficiency in service.

The case judgement was delivered on 18th October. Unfortunately, due to various commitments I could not highlight this earlier. I would like to quote diectly from the write up on the mother channel of this blog.

Sify Broadband to pay for unfair trade practises.

The case related to non disclosure of significant terms and conditions, which included hidden conditions that after downloading of 750 MB data in a month the speed would be reduced to 14 Kbps and also a new condition that if a customer downloaded more than 150 MB data in a day, then he was penalized in the form of reduction of package validity by one day, but still packages were advertised as unlimited.

It has been regarded as a landmark judgment as for the first time technical deficiency has been proved in the court of law in India against an Internet Company. And further Court interpreted the matter from the point of view of definition of Broadband as laid down by TRAI, which lays down criterion of minimum speed of 256 Kbps to be regarded as Broadband. Accordingly, Court has held providing of 14 Kbps speed instead of 256 Kbps is in itself a ‘deficiency in service’.

The case was supported in the Cyber World by hundreds of SIFY customers from all over India, who all experienced similar problems and supported the case throughout, whose testimonials were also included in the original complaint as Annexure!

The last para assumes significance. We rallied together and challanged BSNL to introduce unlimited plans. Even though it is a watered down offering, still it was a victory of all sorts for us to fight the ISP’s and demand what we want and not what they want to give.

Unfortunately, public activism is limited to Medha Patkars of the world who otherwise have their own hidden agendas to propagate. If we all take it lying down, they would F*** us royally like they all have been doing for so many years.

Another quote from Ankur’s post on the broadband forum:

“It has been held that concealing hidden conditions and not redressing the grievances of the complainant who made complaints with regard to poor customer service on number of occassions, in our considered opinion, amounts to deficiency in service on the part of Opposite Party and indulging in to Unfair Trade Practice.

We, therefore, direct the opposite party to refund the amount of Rs 1,200/-, paid for two months by the complainant along with compensation to the tune of Rs 5,000/- for causing mental agony and harassment to the complainant and further, pay a sum of Rs 2,000/- towards cost of litigation to the complainant.”

More details at Sify Case dot org.

I want to know as to how to kick BSNL’s ass. TRAI is ineffectual in enforcing it’s own guidelines and till recently they were operating from an illegal building. The Government violating it’s own rules! For the time being, this judgement can be quoted aross the nation and Sify “broadband” has a potential disaster brewing up for them. I am forwarding the details of the judgement to news organisations and I hope this gains widespread publicity. Either Sify Broadband renegotiate it’s contract with it’s subscribers or refund the money taken from them by fraudulent means. This is cheating. Plain cheating.

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that in the recent Blog Camp in Madras, the WiFi connectivity was provided by Sify “Broadband”. Basically it was a legion of idiots milling around trying to make themselves important. Interestingly, no one mentioned about the company sponsoring their internet connection about being the target of what arguably was the first blog specifically targetting a company and it’s ill doings. It was borne out of frustration from the pathetic access speeds and their high handedness.

Screw them anyway.

Guys, it’s time to kick their assess.

Alternative networks?

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Wifi networks carrying calls other than the conventional means? Govndraj Ethiraj feels that the time has become ripe for such a venture.

Govind writes in for Business Standard, argubaly one of the best newspapers in India. I maynot agree with some of their prescriptions but nevertheless they have invested in “mind capital” and the quality of their write ups shows in their printed matter.

Govind says that Wifi can be used to carry calls which works out to be cheaper. Of course, I have explored these options way back earlier on; the current “competetive” scenario has resulted only in oligopolies and each new talk plan is basically a rehash of the others. Without disclosing upfront about the estimated monthly outgo, TRAI okays each plan without taking the consumer’s advantage in question. As a result we are fleeced to no extent. I really doubt whether WiFi can be used to carry out the calls-the investments are way too huge to justify parallel (and cheaper ) networks. Where would Bharti get it’s crores from?

Assuming that wifi becomes available all around, what is the gurantee that telcos won’t use all means to block the calls via Skype or any other internet phone? High usage charges would spike any consumer interest because in all probability it would be a “value added service” which by it’s own argument, can be priced higher. Unless of course, people set up their own small WiFi networks. A long shot indeed.

I think that ideas like this need to be propagated on a wider scale than a blog with hardly any influential readership. Slowly steadily, they should take up ideas to free the broadband from the restrictions of the frigging idiots who seem to have other ideas. We need a REAL revolution and not what the frigging media seems to tell us.