I came across this link via Boing Boing which shows a slick production of a “video” to save the internet and establishes the foundation of “net neutrality”; something that I had explored earlier on in these columns.

The americans are crazy idiots. They must really be influenced by loads of horse crap; remember they were the ones who voted Bush back in power! Anyway, enjoy the video.

Scoring the need for “expansion”, Brit firms have been expanding in the Indian Telecom “party”. Much of the talk is focussed on the expanding user base (at the rate of 6 million subscribers per month- you must be bullshitting me). While it all sounds “plausible”, depending on the whether or not you trust the figures from morons of all hues- the so called Cellular Operators Association of India.

What we are seeing here is a gradual consolidation of the Indian market leaving the consumers with less and less choice. In hte future, the so called “churn rates” would cease to have any meaning given the fact that we are being left with no choice.

Vodafone’s entry in Indian market has been followed by British Telecom’s entry in the national long distance calling arena. I doubt that with increased “competiton” we would get to see any drastic fall in the prices. Not until we have carrier access codes giving the people a real choice to carry your voice traffic from your preferred operator.

I have no idea about the mode of BT’s delivery of services. Would they lay down the copper cables or the national backbone or tie up with a company like Airtel? Is there any real need to have another player in the muddled waters? Time alone would tell. I believe that we would hitch up to provide “global managed services”- whatever that crap means.

Vodafone’s entry marks another interesting point- something that I didnot realise earlier. They would be willing to provide cheaper international prices something that other operators could loose out. They made all the right noises about the rural market and dirt cheap Chinese phones (YUCK) from ZTE.

Another “point” raised at Gigaom was the expectation that Vodafone would enter the Broadband market! Not only this is off the mark but presents the writer in a very poor light as far as the “anal-ytical” insight goes. From a pure play in the mobile arena (with one of the lousiest data plans in the market) to a fixed line provider starting from a clean slate in the fixed line business would only call for a suicide. Arun Sarin could manage the funds from the sell off in minorty stakes in other countries to raise the cash for Hutch buyout. This cannot be glossed over in the light of their 21 billion Pounds Sterling last year which has put Sarin under much fire for mismanaging the entire show.

Vodafone’s strategy would perhaps be based on the consolidation of 2.5 G services and then leverage it’s strength in the 3G applications from experience in UK and Europe. All the while it hopes that consumers might just want to make that quantum shift all the while by overpricing the services delivery.

This idiocy on the part of people having huge resources at their disposal refuses to die out.

It’s interesting to see and read about people bashing Dataone online using the same ISP to connect to the online communities! I saw one for Hutch and the movement to spearhead the “broadband revolution” in India.

In my opinion, it is a small user base among the Internet users that bitches and moans about the Broadband Narrowband crap stuff. It doesn’t mean anything to the thick skinned idiots. If you are reading this, a middle finger for you.