Ring Side view of Indian Telecom Circus
Is this true picture of Bharti’s performance? They have reported a profit of few hundred crores; at the back of what seems to be perhaps one of the lousiest private companies to be in the market. Their broadband is set to see some major expansion; though I don’t foresee any deviation from their wireless cash cow in the near future. Still, it must be good news for the “honchos”- if you could call these bunch of idiots with their heads tucked away in their puckered asses.
I had written about the issue long time (here and here) back. It is important to revisit the same in the light of the new developments taking place.
Google is planning to set up a huge server farm in North Carolina. This follows a realisation that once the networks are used to download a huge amount of data, it would be impossible by the present set of ISP’s to manage their traffic. This is perhaps one of the major reasons why ISP’s in India are reluctant to offer any higher speeds to it’s users.
The whole premise of “broadband” in India (and elsewhere) is that not ALL the users would be logged in the network at the same time. This model has served the users and the ISP’s well. Most of the users are happy to surf blogs/ chat up or perhaps Skype for a good measure. The online games would be restricted to a “lucky set of few” who have the hardware to go along with it. Out of 10 lakh plus customers (if we can take the numbers on the face value), how many would be cribbing about the latency hassles? Not many. Give or take, you could find some of them bitching on the forums about the same. They are a woeful minorty and can be easily ignored.
Not unless the ISP’s get serious about augmenting their incomes from the same services they spite on. It is difficult to get the users try out something new; you could see some pilot based trials being offered and perhaps becoming a premium based service in the near future. However, imagine increased number of users signing up for the video services/IPTV et al. Can their networks handle the increased traffic?
Here in comes Google styled data centre. It is owning up a huge amount of fibre that’s available and setting up the data centres so that ISP’s could route traffic through it. We would become dependent on Google for everything. Our identities would be “googlelised” and we would be individual entities serving a corporations interest. Owning the Internet is a scary thought indeed.
Hence we need to decentralise the networks. However, strangely the lexicon of public ownership of the utilities is a misnomer. We dont have a say in the way we would want the services to run. We would want to have several backbones with zero latencies and make it affordable and cheaper to switch a broadband service provider. At the same time, explore real alternatives like broadband over power lines (a proof of concept that actually seems to work). Your electricity utility could offer you broadband connections; it should be easy to plug the gadgets in and surf Internet without any restrictions.
How this all shapes up is difficult to decide. I had earlier assayed my fears about the monopoly of BSNL and failure of the others to catch up with the “sinister” games of the monopoly player. It does sound alarmist in my opinion, but there are not enough players to invest in a national backbone and exploring the alternatives to digging the roadsides. Wireless is crowed about but there seems to be no proof of concept that wireless might be able to upstage the wireline networks.
BSNL might as well be tempted to stem the flow of information. The recent ban on the blogspot domain (where are multutude of idiots- so called Indie bloggers have their blogs scribbling down the colour of their underwears) is fresh in the memory. BSNL would then serve the ruling Government’s interest in playing the censor. So far, it has been successful in imposing their own code of morals.
Internet as we know needs to get away from the shackles of a few handful access providers and truly have an independent perspective.
(I thank the webmaster personally for keeping this website free. We did decide to have an adsense programme running but I was not keen on generating content to keep the adsense ticking or having bogus click throughs. We fiercely defend our point of view and intend to keep it this way for all practical purposes).
Robert Cringely has another take on the issue and of course, the tone and the write up is majorly “inspired” by his own insights.
So well this is the new coinage of the “twisted” pathetic Internet access that we call as broadband. People need to be educated about the word “broadband”. It is the speed with which you can access applications online. Not the restricted pathetic “always- on” connection and neither the narrow band that we are used to. No wonder, guys call it as the “fraudband”.
Airtel is screwing up majorly. They have failed to lauch their promised services and are no where closer to the “revolution”. They do have some plans tailored for the masses; in my opinion, they donot believe in one size fits all approach. These permutations and combinations including the jugglery of the plans only serves to confuse the public; majority of them who would not be able to tell as to why the lights blink on the modem. Internet connectivity is “fast” only if the pages load up “fast”.
Airtel has it’s intentions right when it wants to gear up to “serve it’s esteemed” customers. They screw up on the same because there seems to be no accountability. They have a lousy web site which seems to be “confused” and groping for direction and searching for information means a lot of click throughs.
Why on earth they spend money only to make it useless. A heavy use of flash or corporate goodiness serves no purpose except to irritate the visitiors. Though, I wonder, as to how many realise the fundamental value of clear lines of communication to advertise?
Speaking of “fraudband”, I believe that we are getting sick and tired of the ham handed approach towards access. The snail pace would leave us far behind in the knowledge industry. There are no alarm bells ringing though.
We can just sit back and hope.
One thing is for sure. BSNL is planning to come in as a major triple play player in the next coming few months. They are looking forward to leverage this advantage big time.
The upgraded 2 Mbps speeds is a wow factor in India which till recently was unheard of concept. Perhaps for the first time ever, we can watch streaming videos without bothering about the buffer times. BSNL is keen and intent on declaring this year as the year of broadband; something that reflects from the CMD’s message online.
I quote verbatim: (emphasis mine)
Year 2007 is going to witness a Broadband revolution as we have declared 2007 as “YEAR OF BROADBAND”. We intend to invest Rs.2000 Crore to strengthen our Broadband Infrastructure. Today our Broadband service is available in about 600 cities / towns. We plan to extend Broadband coverage to more than 1000 Cities / Towns and 20000 Villages over the next two years. During the year 2007, Broadband coverage will be provided to all Secondary / Higher Secondary Schools and all Public Health Centers. Gram Panchayats will be brought under Broadband map progressively by 2008.
Our existing Broadband capacity of 1 Million ports is planned to be augmented by 5 million ports, out of which 1.8 million ports will be deployed in rural areas. We are in the process of launching Broadband access through Wi-Max technology in about 1000 Block Headquarters. Wi-Max is capable of offering Wireless Broadband Service in a radius of 20-25 Kilometers. You can look forward to launch of Triple Play Services and On-Line Gaming Services over Broadband during this year.
We have also decided to provide latest features on our fixed line phones and would gradually replace the existing telephone instruments of the customers with instruments having facilities like CLIP etc. (This is true indeed and the company has provided a new handset at my premises. It was definitely a pleasant surprise).
I thank all BSNL Customers for the faith reposed in our services. (This is contestable claim. Mr. CMD doesn’t realise that all these years we have had NO option). We re-affirm our commitment to empower our customers with world class state-of-the-art services (Really? If that is true, Mr CMD, remember the frustrated mails sent across to your office complaining about the local line man not being able to set right the fault in the cabling landing in my flat, which played havoc with my broadband access) at affordable rates and look forward to their continued patronage. (Thanks to the lethargy of Airtel/ Reliance/ HFCL Connect and other players looking at pan India presence, we would have to tolerate BSNL for the next coming few years).
Still, this demonstrates BSNL’s intent to rectify the issues with looking at long term money spinners in terms of value added services. We would hardly get to see the uniform roll out of the promised services; it would be a staggered soft launch. This is in trend with the other roll out of BSNL’s services. Finally, this reminds me of the pain and agony we all had to face while upgrading to the “unlimited” plans. 2 Mbps unlimited seems to be a far cry. One thing is for sure. If BSNL has an affordable package for triple play, then I am willing to migrate to the thingy.
Airtel, watch out. BSNL would sting you hard on your privates and Mr Mittal and his fancy promos may all go out for a toss. We’d wait and watch.
Apple is slowly morphing into the “devils” from Redmond. I just couldn’t resist this parody from You Tube to be posted up here. Enjoy!
This is from the “iconic” Steve Jobs who has a master stragetist behind marketing Apple’s products. In the recently concluded Mac Expo, this phone was unveiled. It is hoped that it would be shipped by mid of this year in an exclusive tie up with Cingular. Apple plans to support more protocols in future.
Apart from the “oh-so” design, what is so special about the phone and why has it been featured on this blog? I believe that Apple wants to get to the fast expanding world of Wireless. These guys could have manufactured this beaut earlier on. They didn’t. They were waiting for a perfect roll out of their iTunes store with music videos and songs so that it becomes a compelling proposition for Apple to sell a device which could play their wares on their hardware.
It is a win win for the telecom companies and Apple. Telecom companies can drive up the sales for their horrible tech called as EDGE/ 3G and have a reason to lobby for extra spectrum. Apple can crow about it’s iTunes and it’s phone. People would be willing to either show off their new tech toy or get hooked on to watching streaming video (in my opinion it gets boring after a while unless the people in question are stone dead morons watching reruns of “Friends”). It is this critical mass of idiots that Apple wants to target. And it is the same mass that is more comfortable with mobiles than computers.
iPod has become critical to Apple’s soaring stock market and it’s fortunes. Till recently, the only innovation has been in increasing the hard disc size or adding a tiny screen to it. For the same reason, iPhone would be so called “iconic” and “ahead of it’s time”.
Why is it important for India? I believe that value added services mean a lot to the telecom companies for their cash generation. And morons are to be found everywhere 
It took a company like Apple to design something different and market it as if there is no tomorrow. What would stop a company like Reliance/ Airtel/ Hutch to get this in India? However, since we don’t have a portal like iTunes specifically for Indian market, it would take a long time to fructify it’s plans to make things happen here. Still, I wouldn’t like to discount any development of this sort here in Indian market.
Picture taken from the Apple website.
Update: Robert Cringely has written on his blogechoing my own thoughts. He obviously makes much better sense than I do.
I take the liberty of quoting him from his write up.(Emphasis mine)
Cisco’s trademark infringement lawsuit, as well as its recent introduction of new iPhone models, shows the company has no intention of giving up the iPhone trademark to Apple. And since Cisco has a prior claim, just as many lawyers, and more money than Apple, one can only guess that Cisco will prevail. So why did Apple start this fight in the first place? Publicity.
Further, Robert asserts :
This leaves us with the mystery of why Apple deliberately hobbled the cellular Internet capability of its iPhone, Apple Phone, whatever. As described this week, when the iPhone ships it will only work with Cingular’s EDGE network, which is its 2G Internet service that maxes out at 170 kilobits per second on not just a good day but on a day that is so good it never happens. I’ve used the EDGE network and it feels like dial-up to me.
The iPhone is this amazing connectivity quad-mode device that can probably make use of as much bandwidth as it can get, so making it suck through the little straw that is EDGE makes no sense from a user perspective. But remember that the parties involved here are Apple and Cingular, neither of which is 100 percent allied with user interests. Cingular has a 3G network called BroadbandConnect or “MediaNet” if you buy Cingular’s associated Cingular Video service….It comes down to an accommodation. Cingular wants an iPhone exclusive and is probably paying Apple money for that privilege. Mobile phone carriers are eager for video to succeed on their 3G and 4G platforms because it represents a major new source of revenue. Apple’s iPhone is the best handset yet for displaying that video. But Apple isn’t going to allow this to happen without Cupertino gaining a substantial piece of the action.
Apple doesn’t intend simply to enter the mobile phone market, they intend to dominate it, and ultimately to gain service revenue through iTunes, no matter whose phone you buy.
Ok. My cellphone has totally freaked out. I need to shift my number from the old Tata Indicom handset to a new one. Since it’s a CDMA based phone, I had to go to the Tata Indicom support center in Gurgaon. They just have one of those in the whole city.
It’s hard to find parking in the area around the mall where they have their official setup. We went there. The dude did the required changes in the backend within 10 minutes. All good.
Umm. Not really.
He told me that the shift would take a maximum of 12 hours. First the old handset would stop working and after a while the new one would start working.
If the new one does not start working within that period, I would have to visit them AGAIN to get it programmed. They cannot program it right away for some god damned reason.
Within 10 minutes, the first cell phone had stopped working. The new one does not work still.
Knowing Tata people… I WOULD have to go to that mall to go to their showroom to get it programmed. Like I did it the first time I got the connection.
I am complaining because when I took the connection, I ASKED them to give me a SIM based CDMA connection. They lied to me and gave me a Simless connection. So, I am dependent upon them to get my handset changed. I am so totally disappointed in them.
