At best, the draft proposals sound what has been proposed; but the industry and their associations would definitely seek to water it down.  Any customer “friendly” variant is not welcome for obvious reasons. In any case, the draft policy (specifically on broadband) needs specific inputs rather than broad sweeping generalizations that cannot be fulfilled in the current scenario. The Government of India also needs to do away with self styled experts and focus on basics to understand the need to encourage the adoption of broadband.

Let me be honest. I haven’t read the draft proposal in it’s entirety. So I would prefer to link it to someone who has done it. As luck would have it, I stumbled again on Medianama  with their take on the proposed policy changes. I would only highlight the issues that I feel need to be addressed regarding broadband alone.

1) Definition of Broadband : Always on with a minimum speed of 2 Mbps and not as proposed  to be changed in the year 2015. This is because with the change at the centre, the policy decisions invariably get stuck in the red tape. The whole bunch of users have been clamoring for 2 Mbps as the basic benchmark in order to utilize the actual benefit of the broadband.

Why? Because 256 kbps is pathetic. You cannot video chat effectively. You cannot stream media applications. You cannot do zilch. Still, the definition remains stuck at mere “doubling” of the speed. 100 Mbps is a promised pipe dream.

2) There have been effective proposals for setting up interlink peer exchanges in India to replace NIXI. An excellent blog post (not written by me but Mathew), clearly details the methodology to achieve this.  The highlights (sic):

NIXI is supposed to be a non-profit organization (that part I believe), however it allows ISPs to essentially charge each other tariffs of Rs25 per GB. At 1gbit/s, with an in:out ratio of 3:1 and utilization of 80% or so, this comes out to a total monthly bill of Rs44 lakh, or about Rs17/GB.

That’s a hell of a lot of coin, considering that 2 months of that could pay for a year’s supply of bandwidth to Singapore. Yes, a year (well, a single STM-1 @ 155mbit/s, anyway, but the cost still only works out to about Rs13/GB).

As you can imagine, if I, as an ISP, can save Rs4 PER GIGABYTE, I’m damn well going to,

otherwise I have to pass that on to you – the consumer.

3) The proposed opening up of the last mile access by wireless is a useless idea. Wireless or any of it’s iterations cannot, I repeat cannot be relied on for data intensive applications. There is no draft proposal for public access of Wifi’s bankrolled by the municipal corporations. Wifi’s can be used for another lofty purpose. To route the mobile network calls in hard to reach areas. Another brilliant stroke would be to encourage the uptake of the VoIP.

4) Even if you have 100 Mbps rolling in a shiny FTTH all the way up to your home, the lack of “real application” is a dampener. What would the mass of humanity rolling in this country use 100 Mbps for? Facebook? There is no concept proposal for encouraging the uptake of the broadband applications, for fostering a community of developers, lack of clear focus on the e-commerce, overt valuations of the existing firms and the works.  Granted that this is chicken and egg situation,  100 Mbps broadband networks are mere pipe dreams till the time there is focus on backing up a reliable infrastructure and true “unlimited access”.

5) Unbundling of the last mile access: The PSU’s are like wives. You can’t live with them. You can’t kill them. Simple. However, it does not mean that the last mile should be unbundled without having a proper oversight of the sector. I had believed earlier that proper competition on the same copper would effectively bring down the prices. However, this is fraught with it’s own hassles. The copper is pubic property and I am sure that anyone investing money would extract his own pound of flesh in terms of ownership of the cable. (This one is a retort to Medianama).

This should not be encouraged. Instead, the companies need to be given incentives to invest in the cable, peer through a separate exchange, a unified license to allow them VoIP applications, create infrastructure for niche products. For example, there could be an ISP specifically for gaming. Let it have the best response times in terms of ping. A separate company for IPTV applications. A different company for say, tele-medicine solutions with end to end infrastructure. Back it up with rural broadband initiatives and then you have customized solutions for different segments.

Let these marginal players slug it out with the established partners. Let them expand the pie. Mobile telephony did not happen overnight but by relentless onslaught of the advertisements to create a need for the product. I am not a big fan of the mobile applications, but that does not bias my outlook for the explosive growth, even though the numbers are disputed crap.

Broadband is a niche application. The draft proposals are mere eye wash and they need to be understood in their context before we bleat and crow about being a fucked up IT “superpower”.

What I agree with Medianama is the crap “fair usage policies”. But I have already stressed on the “unlimited” access. This is hardly going to be achieved and despite claims by fucktards of downloading 100, 500 or even 1000 GB is hogwash. As far as the net neutrality goes, the “faster access” to certain businesses is a huge controversial issue. The ping times in this country are so awful that is hardly going to matter.

Hence, all the more the sarkari buffons need to be given a pat on their asses for making some effort to think over the issues. With all due respect, I am also uploading the critique to their proposals. I am not sure who is going to read them, but for sure, this is better than just sucking up and doing nothing.

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Kudos to the early adopters who got seduced by 3G. It was hailed as the coming of the jesus; as the next re-incarnation and watching “TV” on the go. There are some stupid people and then there are even more stupid people. The profound cretins can’t even distiguish chalk from cheese.

Interestingly, Business Standard has shown “rare courage” in Indian media to get on with negative coverage of the 3G experience. One of the commonest complaints is the quality of the service.

A fluctuating 3G network is a common complaint from consumers who are early adopters of the service. Users say their new 3G network keeps shifting back to 2G network, mostly in the middle when they are downloading or uploading a video. For the time period that networks shift from 3G to 2G, customers are unable to make calls as well.

Another “frustrated” customer points back to fluctuating network:

And 3G service is not living up to its most luring promise — entertainment while on the go. On the contrary, customers in Mumbai says the 3G network doesn’t work while travelling in the trains. “The advertisements say that 3G users need not miss matches and watch TV on mobile. But once we get on to the train, there are no traces of network, neither 2G nor 3G,” says yet another frustrated subscriber.

I have always advocated community Wifi for the purpose. Invest money from the municipalties. That way, the community owns the network, instead of being dictated by a couple of dickheads. However, as the nature of this banana republic is, we underestimate the indirect costs of having such pathetic companies at helm of the affairs. Wireless data is a pipe dream; a useless idea which should be abhorred.It cannot be undone but well lets see how this unfolds.

A company that cannot ensure proper coverage should be out of the business. Simple. In India, it would not happen though.

P.S. The image above shows the Metro Wifi which ought to be blanketed.

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I have explored various other aspects of mobile internet in recent times. It would not be worthwhile to cry myself hoarse about the pathetic mobile access in India (which I have done repeatedly) but lets take a look at how the platforms are evolving based on the Mobile version of “broadband”.

Unfortunately, this write up draws inspiration from the western markets because the traditional mobile industry in India has not matured beyond the typical value added services of ring tones. I find it really hard to swallow if someone points me towards the mobile “games”. Yes, there are enough idiots to crow about the viability of mobile games as a money spinner but we could safely ignore them.Including the myriad “research firms” that pay money to get “quoted” in mainstream Indian press and financial dailies.However, it could be different if we have something like “Indian version” of Angry Birds. (Disclosure: I have that on my Android handset and ABSOLUTELY love it. With their shift towards in-game payment options), they would be justifying the huge surge of interest from venture capitalists.

This brings Indian media into picture. Over the past few weeks, I have been interacting with some people regarding “upgradation” of their web sites. They are badly coded examples of the worst case scenario of “Indian outsourcing”. I have tried, in recent times, to make a shift towards Drupal and understand that it is a sum of all aspects that needs to work in different browsers with cross platform compatibility. Unfortunately, they don’t realize the importance of having a proper mobile access stripped of advertisements.

Hence, a “mature” access device is unlikely to make a dent in India. The success of iPad hinges more from how Jobs has been able to “distort the reality” with his marketing gimmicks and how the whole ecosystem has been designed to keep the customers locked in. However, given the form factor, Jobs has been able to hit the sweet spot; a readable touch screen with mobile access.

There are people who swear by Flipboard but I haven’t really found a good RSS reader with capability of semantic linkages. Zeta has been launched recently with a lot of promise and cluster fuck advertising but since I don’t have an iPad, it is unlikely I would do any kind of a comparison between Zeta and Flipboard. I am stuck to Google Reader because thats unfortunately, the only in-browser app that works (others are plain useless with perhaps a bit of exception to RSS Owl or Blog Bridge).

Murdoch had launched “The Daily” with a lot of hype; but a few weeks later, there are people leaving him away in droves.There has been a lot of explaining behind this because arguably the fundamental reasoning behind iPad apps is flawed. For those who are watching the media space (and betting on Indian version of tablets) are going to be highly disappointed but well, they are unlikely to invest in resources which cannot be monetised (given the huge levels of piracy and nearly absent mechanisms of micropayments in this technology backwaters of the world).

So this effectively boils down to lack of developer interest in creating applications (hey what would you get with a huge army of morons and script kiddies who can’t even code a single line of software), lack of venture capital and inability to sustain a start up. (I strongly suggest that you read Shyam’s write up on the same issue). To quote selectively:

The main problem is that the Indian market for digital goods and services is tiny. In a non-existent market, neither product finesse nor pricing can make much of a difference. There is barely enough size in the digital domain to sustain large profitable companies.

Ironically, mobile companies are the only ones to push for content. However, therein comes the “platform interest”. Would you invest money in something that works across all handsets with rival operators? Or would you invest in something that would be locked up for your own network alone? Either way, the thorny issue does not yield any straight answers.

Hence, I find the obessession with pumping up digital content a tad boring. Not because I don’t want to consume but the options are sorely limited. Eve for 3G access, companies forbid “tethering” (not that no one cares a rats ass fuck about it) but they expect the 3g phones to have gigantic screens that would solve the issue. This would also explain that one reason why the prices are so high. Apart from the sunk costs, most of the operators are well aware that Internet access on mobiles would broadly mirror the broadband access on land lines i.e. a huge mass of zombified idiots would access only Yahoo or Facebook. It cannot be wished away because they would only cater to the mass of idiots without bothering about the “outliers” like us because there is no “real space” created.

No one wants to spend money to “change the habits” for content access. They would rather fill up the channels (and “news”) with “Bollywood flotsam” and fake celebrities prancing around either naked or raved out with hollow sockets floating around in public perception. (Okay well, I am biased since I find most of them really retarded).

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Granted, Mediacom realized the error in part because our users were informed about their connections and started to complain. Mediacom also failed to inform users that the test was ongoing, and still hasn’t made an official comment on the matter likely due to legal concerns.
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We eargerly look forward to next year’s Ofcom study indicating users get half of what they pay for and that Ofcom is planning to crack down on “up to” marketing. Here in the States the FCC has claimed users also only get a fraction of their advertised speeds. The FCC proposed requiring ISPs to advertise speed tiers based on average connection performance estimates for peak and off peak speeds, though that push appears to have disappeared. Anticipating regulatory action on this front, some ISPs here in the States like Verizon have voluntarily eliminated the “up to” phrase and list possible service speed ranges instead.
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You Tube Video of Vodafone 3G Advertisement

This is NOT an endorsement for Vodafone. I don’t like this company personally because I find them stupid. And arrogant. And zombified.

But this is not to deny their brilliant marketing tactics. I haven’t come across a better product marketing in India (as far as telecom is concerned) than Vodafone India. On their main web site, although full of “flashturbation”, but nevertheless, gets the prospective customer to wade in through the “3g effect”. Great stuff.

The above advertisement is on roll; I haven’t seen any reactions so far elsewhere but thats the way it is.

Although it has been under a lot of soup regarding alleged “financial irregularities”, still Vodafone (Essar) has managed to pull through without much controversy. There also has been a lot of news about gains in “shift of customers through Mobile Number Portability” (MNP), but I don’t have hard core data.

All the more, it remains to be seen as to how vodafone unlocks the customer’s wallets for it’s 3G. I don’t have any information about it’s plans but it unlikely to go in for any predatory pricing as of now. For all I care, on it’s post paid plans, it charges over 10p/10 kb which is ridiculous. Although I am on Tata Docomo (I find it adequate for my light needs), pre-apid is the way to go.

Lets see how this plays out in the long run. See it for yourself!

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Vodafone 3G Advertisement

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I have always supported Community Wifi Access. This is because mobile broadband is useless for heavy duty applications. 3G access is a passe’.

Aircel has not responded to my queries and neither I am interested to follow them up. I had earlier emailed them about the promotion of mobile apps. It isn’t clear how they were developed and what platform is supported.

But I was genuinely surprised to see their advertisements in main stream media for Wifi access through smart platforms (phones/laptops/tablets). Although the adverts did allude to a “rosy picture”; it is not entirely clear as to how they propose to pull it off with no identified “backend”. More so, it is important that Wifi needs to be scaled up to residential areas so that they enough traction to call the shots as well as have a positive spin off on their recently launched 3G options.

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This news has come in from FastCompany

As it says:
The Webbox is externally just a 14cm by 25cm QWERTY keyboard that has an RCA cable dangling from its rear–this coaxial cable will connect to a domestic TV tuned to a particular channel, and lets Webbox content appear on its screen. Inside it’s pretty sophisticated, with the guts of a 3G smartphone powering it–it runs over EDGE or 2.5G networks to get its data, and leverages Opera’s Mini browser suite (which compresses web pages to much smaller file sizes remotely) to ensure that the data burden on cell phone networks is low–which is good for low-income users and struggling cell networks alike–and that the device works swiftly.

It is an interesting concept. It combines a ‘mobile telephony’ through 2.5G (or horrors of horrors through GPRS) and thence output through your television.

I have run Opera Mini on my laptop through Java Emulator; it’s brilliant access at times when I don’t have access to Wifi. This Internet TV is something similar in it’s approach although they have routed the output through a usual TV.

However, this is not the end all. Heavy Java Script sites would not work; although the demo is not clear, Opera Mini is expected to run the mobile versions alone; this is not a very pleasant experience.

What gets my goose is that India has been lumped with the bygone nations -Kenya, Ghana and others. This only reflects their “poverty of thought” and generalized assholism. I am not a fan of Vodafone at all; despite their slick advertisements, it does nothing to “serve” it’s customers and perhaps one of the worst telecom companies. Nevertheless, this is a good innovation; it remains to be see how well they are able to capitalize on this, if and when it is launched.

Oh by the way, expect some rather crude “download limits”; these buggers are going to charge you per kb. Their billing systems are pathetic and try wrangling out the details from their customer care executives. You’d be appalled.

Last but not the least. Beyond certain “platitudes” and ass licking in the media (with crumbs thrown at the journalists and news papers), I really doubt whether they would have a mass market for it. They could have easily loaded up Opera Mobile instead.

And yes, as the dingbat in the advertisement says about “technological leap”, it isn’t so. The mobile phone circuits (and the RAM) is cheap with an output for the TV and external keyboard. It’s not big deal but it’s a good idea.

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Nokia India is seeing a decreasing market share because it is staffed up by inefficient morons who have no clue where the technology trends are heading for. Even on their “low end 3G handsets”, I don’t see mention of Opera Mini, a Java based browser, but their inane persistence towards technological harakiri. Hence the rise of alternative technological platforms to access mobile internet.

Even in the huge market, the per capita consumption is barely 7MB per month which may be true (reflects my own usage on Docomo that I have). The idea behind having Mini installed is that it efficiently compresses the page before it is rendered on your handset. Nokia has not been able to get ANY traction in this market and Opera is seeing millions of page views per month through it’s data centre.

This of course worries me as a Desktop user. Even though it grows in popularity in mobile space and earns revenue from Google for it’s searches, it does not seem to have a spill over in the desktop segment.

Although they have done everything to open up the extensions framework but it seems that it is bound to be doomed the way Opera Unite/ Opera Widgets were. There is no palpable excitement in the blogosphere about this.

Apart from this, IMHO, mobile internet has a huge potential to grow in terms of “apps”. These little widgets are a rage and out of all the mobile operators only Aircel seems to be doing something right. At least they have created a framework for the same to spur on internet usage. To be honest, I haven’t seen their application in real time but their advertisements are a pointer towards the same. Yet, if they were REALLY smart, they would open up their application framework

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I don’t get a huge amount of traffic anyway but I have updated the social plug ins at bottom of the each post. I wanted to set up an email system with perhaps email delivery to the inboxes but decided against it. We get so much spam as it is and it’s not worth it. For me, RSS rules my life in terms of content delivery and it has been highlighted on the main page itself.

Changes bring forth a newer perspective and rejuvenates the thought process. Although most users perhaps don’t ever need to come on the web site (since the RSS feed summaries are full on by default), still, it makes sense to have a fresh outlook.

A very happy new year to all the readers and this year too we are without any advertisements. Thanks to my web master, thanks to all those who are involved in the upkeep of this blog and thanks to you readers. Although I must admit that I do miss engaging content discussion but due to paucity of time and other commitments, I am unable to do full justice to this space.

I am waiting for BSNL RTI reply to detailed questionnaire and that should see a lot of activity in the near future.

Cheers!!

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1) Smart phones and Android taking center stage with Nokia dying a slow death.

2) 2G spectrum scam

3) 3G mess.

There are tonnes of web sites scattered all around to tell you about Android’s home coming. I am not getting in the debate about what is good or bad but Apple (across the lines) remains aspirational because of it’s perceived value.

2G Spectrum scam has also been mentioned extensively with the political fall out affecting Congress and it’s cohorts; again the debate has been frittered away to be of any consequence.

3G Mess is bad. Really bad. Partly because it has been sold on lines of “only Internet access” you’d ever need. As mentioned in these columns (and comments) that none of the devices support advertised speeds of 21Mbps; more so, in absence of clear definition of what 3G speeds are, you would not really see much traction there. The operators have dreamt of fat profits accruing from the sales and perhaps are marketing different plans for mobile handsets and wireless modems. Docomo even explicitly prohibits “tethering” mobiles to laptops citing it as “violation of terms of use”; as it they can “prove it court of law”. Assholes.

4G is on the horizon and as such the media reports were peppered with what technology to choose. There are of course competing issues; I am not qualified enough to explain the merits/demerits of each.

Another highlight of this year was the final recognition of menace of telemarketing calls and sms (with sms rates being usurious and companies raking in huge profits from what is essentially free for them). I have written about it earlier but there are others in space who have written about it more extensively (Rajesh Jain on Telemarketing and SMS Spam[1,2,3,4,5])

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) would be a big issue in 2011. Although it has been launched in Haryana, there are not enough media reports about the impact of MNP on the same. Is it surprising? With telecom companies leading in advertisement spends, they hold enough leverage to influence reporting the issue. Hence I would remain blocked out on the same unless it becomes a major issue. However, they don’t give a shit to the users because there is no REAL choice between the service providers. Most of the new operators have yet not launched their operations (and hence got notices for the same) so it is difficult to comment on the same. I foresee a lot of activity in next year in terms of new players and mobile number portability to affect them. Yet, with the rise of cheap “chinese manufactured- Indian branded” hardware with dual and three SIM card slots, issues like MNP don’t hold much promise. Hence this too would remain a lot of hot air with some speculation towards “power to consumer”.

I have written extensively to TRAI, Department of Telecom and various stake holders in media about why need broadband and what is basic policy flaw in the system. This has also been a subject of my RTI applications being filed with them. At risk of sounding repetitive, we all need a proper system for growth of the nation and that is a foregone conclusion. However, the system is designed not to provide but to deprive the users from opportunities. If public good were at the heart of policy makers (and politicians), we would not have been a kangaroo republic (mistaken for a democracy).

I fail to understand the stupidity of media houses not to push for all inclusive growth in Broadband; since their own very future depends on it. I have briefly toyed with the idea of setting up a NGO; there is no scarcity of ideas that need to be implemented. What is lacking in this space is will to implement those ideas. The whole scenario is lumbering around like a giant iceberg. Yet as monotony in this space grows, Internet access is fuelled by explosive growth in social networking to Facebook’s data servers. Here in lies the rub. Media in India is even lacking in this space and focusing instead to try out experiments in their own walled microdomains expecting the advertisers to come on in hordes and expecting to rake in millions of dollars from advertising click throughs.

However, this dream lies shattered with corpses of media houses dotting the landscape instead. Content is supreme and while we retain the numero uno position for generating mountains of crap in terms of bollywood export, this has not found a “release” except from traditional channels of multiplexes and to some extent, DTH. Instead, we don’t have a Hulu or Netflix like player capitalizing on this aspect of delivery. 3g cannot do it. 4g cannot do it. Wifi perhaps. Broadband on wirelines- definitely.

This blog has also seen some write ups on the need to tone up internet exchanges, need for TRAI to jig up it’s broadband policy and a call for Public Internet cafes. Interestingly, we also saw NDTV’s programme on broadband which we linked on to and perhaps the first in a long long time coming in from mainstream media. TRAI did talk about “fair usage policy” although in context of telecom tariffs. Another highlight was my post on online education and something on cloud computing in respone to Chrome OS.

This, by and large, what I had written with some guest posts. I have already filed in RTI application with BSNL as listed and I am awaiting their response. My only aim to get to root on pricing on Broadband, the mess and perhaps get a better deal on it in the long run. The first step is perhaps to re-define broadband from it’s present definition. I am also planning to involve TRAI in this loop along with perhaps Department of Telecom and see how they differ. Although TRAI is the regulator, the real power lies with DoT. Yet, it is a blame game that they are likely to play. DoT would say that TRAI has to come up with regulations first. TRAI would say that DoT is the real boss and they have to come up with a “circular”. No one wants to work and consumer gets the fuck of his life.

I have seen the Indians from close quarters. They would suffer all the insults with great temerity and humbleness. Perhaps it is the servile attitude that is ingrained in their psyche. Neither we are going to see a good amount of activism to make the public institutions deliver nor are the companies going to make any efforts to tone up their services. It costs real money to keep up with after sales service which actually eats up the profits and hence customer service is perhaps the last of ideas on their minds.

This post by itself is a huge huge post in a long long time! Maybe perhaps, I have written about trends subconsciously which I feel would impact the telecom landscape in some way or the other. The market is not geared towards course correction but is littered with asymmetric information to disadvantage of consumers. Sadly proactive approaches, either at regulator level or mass media or even at consumer level is sorely lacking.

The new year is not going to change this scenario in any manner whatsoever.

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The blurb:

There were problems in interception facilities of video calling on 3G services, which needs to be addressed before the launch. The operators have said monitoring facility of video calls was not available anywhere in the world and the operators were talking to vendors to find out a solution.

The government wants real-time interception by which the security agencies could monitor/intercept video calls as it happens.

Understandably, 3G in India has caused more issues than it has solved.

Unfortunately, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has provided a 2005 document on definition of 3G data rates (to quote):

ITU has not provided a clear definition of the data rate users can expect from 3G equipment or providers. Thus users sold 3G service may not be able to point to a standard and say that the rates it specifies are not being met. While stating in commentary that “it is expected that IMT-2000 will provide higher transmission rates: a minimum data rate of 2 Mbit/s for stationary or walking users, and 384 kbit/s in a moving vehicle,”[18] the ITU does not actually clearly specify minimum or average rates or what modes of the interfaces qualify as 3G, so various rates are sold as 3G intended to meet customers expectations of broadband data.

This causes issues in clear definition of 3G rates that would be expected of these companies to provide us with. This confusion also means that we are in the same league as broadband- no clear definition and companies can murder and get away with.

Suppose if you were to file a case against, say Airtel or Reliance for “speed issues”. They can always get away with “network congestion” argument. Further, in court of law, TRAI could be answerable for it has failed to set a clear cut idea about 3G (being the regulator) and companies claiming the excuse for TRAI’s inefficiency.

As a customer, you are bound to get a short fuse for being cheated on a gargantuan scale for “higher prices” which is now being sold as a value added service in addition to bundling with voice calls. 3G (in the media) has been hailed as the “next wave of broadband” which is clearly unfortunate case of irrational exuberance.

I have tried to contact Business Standard on fine tuning their editorial content and at least their coverage on Tech issues in India. It is the worst case scenario with rehashed press releases as “news” raising the spectre of “paid media news”. These are often attributed to “BS reporter” and is really pathetic for a newspaper of it’s standing and repute.

In the same vein, although much is made about video calling (at least by those who have front facing cameras), I wonder how would the call clarity be.

I hate this murky world, the obvious excess of advertisements and absolutely no semblance of sensibility and rationalism. This only points towards a total state of anarchy but when the customers by themselves lack any means to differentiate chaff from the grain, I have no love lost for the masses. Let them get screwed; this is testified by occasional mails in my inbox complaining about the poor quality of service and mails to Ambanis and Bhartis and what not. Assholes.

In all this mess, I fail to get the kind of service I would want- pure play wireline fiber optic cable with at least 2 Mbps unmetered and perhaps wireless for restricted mobility and occasional odd job that needs to be done of the fly. EDGE is good enough for the needs; basic emails work great on that.

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It can also be argued that Cloud computing offers a “cheaper alternative” for net access. For all the noise behind Chrome OS, it remains a re-worked implementation of Linux under the core with fancy “apps” and the browser as central to the computing experience.

To be honest, I hardly use my laptop for anything else. My computing time is solely meant for web access and once Google Voice/Skype have sense enough to implement the technology across the browsers, the other mode of “desktop applications” would become redundant.

It can also be argued about Google OS to be a cheap and effective way to roll out the product or say something like Airtel coming up with a fancy idea of having Airtel-Google branded laptops or netbooks being given “free” with contracts. However, for all this optimistic line of thought, I feel that the market is still not ripe to jump the gun.

Lets see what does Eric Schmidt has to say about it:

With Chrome OS, we have in development a viable third choice in desktop operating systems. Before there was no cloud computing alternative—now we have a product which is fast, robust and scalable enough to support powerful platforms. It’s something computer scientists have been dreaming about for a very, very long time. The kind of magic that we could imagine 20 years ago, but couldn’t make real because we lacked the technology. As developers start playing with our beta Cr-48 Chrome OS computer, they’ll see that while it’s still early days it works unbelievably well. You can build everything that you used to mix and match with client software—taking full advantage of the capacity of the web.

Ignore the brave words.

There is a competing product from Google: Android. It can again be effectively argued that they are separate and none can be adapted for other usage. I digress.

Android, despite ruling the roost on the mobile handsets, needs a lot more polish and push from Google to make it auto upgradeable. I own one from Samsung and hate the loaded crapware. I’d have to flash the ROM and install something else but that’s left from some other day.

Yet in this saga, can Google ever hope to monetise it’s offering? I can assume that after the Chrome OS reaches a critical mass (if and ever), it would be flooded with advertisements. Owning a laptop with loaded Chrome OS is the perfect platform for targetting those niggly ads that guarantee you a better erection in bed. In any case, the volumes are going to come only from the enterprise and that is not going to change in a hurry.

Brave words indeed but here’s a sampling of the common sense that has prevailed in the dark corners of cyberspace:

And any reasonably competent IT executive can plainly see that Google, for all of their algorithmic might, isn’t known for product longevity.

Sure, their core web products have been around for a while and aren’t going anywhere. But they launch a lot more products every year that we quickly forget about, and many of the unsuccessful products are quietly discontinued a few months or years later.

Google’s just not in the business of providing long-term support for an unsuccessful product line. It’s part of what allows them to keep releasing new things all the time while geeks declare Microsoft a boring old dinosaur. But IT departments need their platform vendors to behave much more like Microsoft.

Sad but true.

Hence, in this scenario, I don’t foresee a bright future but it seems to be another flash in the pan from the mavericks. It’s hard to say how this shapes up, how they advertise or strike deals with the manufacturers or how they wish to tone up their advertising platform.

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“They have in principle agreed to provide us recorded data from their servers,” it quoted an interior ministry official as saying.Now they have assured us that they will discuss the issue first among themselves and find a way to meet our demands. Later, they would be providing live access to BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server),”

I apologize for this rather crude portrayal but this best sums up what Blackberry’s “executives” were crowing about earlier. I have covered this issue extensively earlier here and here.

Update: This has been reported on Fast Company too.

I quote a section of it verbatim:

There is no doubt that RIM will get stick for this decision–after all, being seen to be cavalier with one’s customer data is just not cricket. However, they are in an inenviable situation. India is an important market for RIM, which is on course for sales of around 600,000 units by the end of 2010–that’s 5% of the country’s smartphone market.

This is the reason why Blackberry is “bending down”. I don’t remain a fan of their handsets because I find them useless in terms of customization or use. In any case, for the technically oriented, I prefer to use IMAP_IDLE protocol which shifts the mail almost instantaneously to my synced devices. Which also means that the main reason for having a Blackberry vanishes because it was their “mail offering” which made all the difference. With the servers now “live” and push email being replaced by the “protocol”, I find no reason why should anyone pay a premium for that product.

This also explains the slew of advertisements all across the television for their product.

Update 2: RIM denies any involvement with the Indian Government. This is because it would otherwise hurt their share market in other parts of the world. Not knowing fully well that they allow full access to middle east countries where they were rapped on their knuckles and their testicles held till they turned blue.

That’s what is called as “foot in the mouth”!

Here’s what they have to crow about: (emphasis mine)

RIM has once again found it necessary to address certain media reports in India containing inaccurate and misleading statements and information based on unsubstantiated claims from unnamed sources….Our customers can be reassured that the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution continues to be the gold standard for security-conscious organizations in India and worldwide. All our discussions with the Government of India have been and continue to be productive and fully consistent with the four core principles we follow in addressing lawful access matters around the world. Any suggestion to the contrary is false

This is classic corporate gibberish. Which in effect should be interpreted as:

The Indian Government screwed our happiness and threatened us with a ban. Keeping in mind your sensibilities and our pathetic market share, we were afraid that this would affect our future sales and possibly carefully crafted brand image. When we were summoned to the offices, we were shitting in our pants and pissing all over while the Indians screwed us from behind and twisted our little puny testicles. We agreed immediately to all of their demands including complete access to our servers, offices, files, records and gave each one of them our crappy product for “testing purposes”. Because we need to lick the Indian’s asses since they feed our kids (and mistresses) therefore we have allowed full access to your corporate emails and communication including details of YOUR mistresses

Apologies but it drives me mad…

Blackberry India should be the front line nominee for this year’s ASSHOLE OF THE YEAR AWARD

.

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Google is the top referrer here to this blog. People land up here looking for (sic):

calcutta telephones broadband change of
mtnl broadband appellate authority
tata photon plus blog
sujit sahoo hal
people practiecs in bsnl
iptv two way interaction
anil ambani email id
relience communication anil ambani email
broadband explained
airtel ad kunhona
telecom advertising
ndtv
airtel address proof
reliance broadband internet india log ou
airtel advertisement
login ban tata indicom broadband
an ideal customer care executive
broadband over power lines through pg&e
mgcarley is not an indian
grepsoft kasergode
airtel fair usage policy
reliance broadband customer service
who are using tatabroadband in hyderabad

This one obviously takes the cake:

an ideal customer care executive

And this one too:

mgcarley is not an indian

Hodi Baba!!! Indians! WTF!

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A much more prudent option would be to analyze the situation and fix the guilty party. TRAI, to my understanding remains out of bounds for the general public. A public body ought to formulate the policies by LISTENING to them rather than stick around in isolation. Yet, it remains open to lobbyists of all hues and the post retirement bonanza is always an option for the retiring bureaucrats.

Remember Baijal? He had done nothing revolutionary while in TRAI but the worst part was that he went on to join some kind of a rag tag consortium of the private players as a “facilitator”. The exact details elude me since I had read this in one of the weekly magazines (for which I don’t have time now). Loosely translated, it is the big boys club where they are known for their wheeling dealings and lobbying since these guys are fully aware of the levers of power.

What this means for you and me? It means that SMS would be atrociously charged even though it is FREE for the telecom companies; customer care is a farce because these are fronts for these companies as the real buggers hide behind the smokescreen and your hard earned money is being palmed off easily.

My mail in response to Sunil Jain’s write up in Business Standard was published recently (in fact quite a lot of them though). I had clearly mentioned that BSNL does not lack the expertise to roll out the networks but rather it has been ham handed by TRAI and the network expansion plans locked up in court battles which stunts it’s growth. This means that a poor coverage of the private players in rural areas continues as it is because these bastards won’t let the others grow. This also means that behind the glitzy advertisements, your over dependence on these players is being taken for granted and for a ride.

TRAI needs to be dismantled or radically overhauled. It’s time that companies like BSNL speak out against them.

I am putting up the published email in it’s entirety.

The real reason for the loss of market share is the ham handed policies
and has nothing to do with lack of an opportunity. For over many years,
BSNL’s expansion for over 40 million lines for GSM has been held up in
court cases or stuck because of the objections of various ministries. This
speaks volumes about the operational efficiency of the PSU’s.

Mr Jain’s write up clearly points the anomaly. The entry of private
telecom players is welcome because they have worked hard to improve the
teledensity. However, this has definitely come at a cost to Indian
industry. None of the telecom equipment is manufactured in India and we
are dependent on the big majors from the Western world. Broadband as a
metric for the GDP languishes. Mobile connectivity based on voice alone
would not contribute to their kitty based on low ARPU’s; most of the
mobile operators have shied away from creating custom applications for
shoring up the value added services. Finally, having a private operator
does not mean that services are automatically ensured. There are a large
number of forums where people recount their horrible experiences with the
telecom operators; no one seems to be wiser than the other.

All of this to be kept in mind before they can get a clean chit. The real
public sector needs to be shored up, given operational freedom to choose
with the best practises and ideally no interference from any quarter. This
would be a fair enough ground to test for the acquisition of customers.
Further, the PSU needs to shed their complacency in case they need to
survive instead of relying alone on the taxpayers money.

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Fuck them.

I was indeed surprised to read about Mukesh’s foray in the telecom business. This time in Broadband. Clearly there is a potential but he’s opted for Wimax delivery. It was all about Dad’s dream (as claimed earlier in the advertisements). It was clear to Mukesh and his team that in order to break through the clutter, they had to get something which was never heard off in the country before. Their “web stores” were one stop “digital hubs”. The idea, in theory was great. Yet, the gaming didn’t work off the way they wanted, it had severe billing issues and it appeared that Anil Ambani was interested to market the cellular version of telecom. Not the broadband variety.

Although, I am quite aware of the fact that they spent a huge packet of money to lay down the fibre optic cables and an attempt was made to provide for end to end connectivity. To add to their assholism (it is a very interesting mix of assholes trying to market something without creating a demand for it), their existing broadband plans sucked.

Any number of idiots mill around the forums to complain about Reliance but are totally unwilling to drag them to the court. You would find the same crop whining and sucking up later for the “new” wireless broadband because limited spectrum would mean that download limits would be rigorously imposed. Screwheads are aware of such issues yet claim a zillion times that they have been “ripped”.

Anyway, this interesting “brotherly rivalry” has no parallels. The billionaires with their army of lawyers are hell bent on making the “first move”. If I were in Mukesh’s telecom team, I would make the access “free”, charge for premium users and for those who wish to clog the networks, would have to pay the maximum. A free net access would mean that if your service has minimum downtime, more and more people would sign up for “premium services”. Simple logic but it’s beyond their thick skulls to understand. They are hard nosed businessmen. They think they know better.

See how this story evolves!

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By it’s very definition, these messages are “unwelcome”. No one wants them. No one has ever requested for them. Yet, they stream in with a renewed vigor. I had planned some sort of RTI against them to be petitioned in TRAI. Yet, I am aware of the limitations on my time and the fact that one needs immense amount of patience for such a task. The way out has been by one feisty lady named Nivedita Sharma who has acted against these telecom operators. The cat is out of the bag. It is clear that all these numbers are leaked out in the databases. The fuckers who claim innocence are the ones who are worst culprits.

It isn’t brilliant journalism. Yet, kudos to Outlook (to some extent), that they carried out the lead story on the telemarketing calls. Unsolicited messages is supposed to be 50,000 crore industry (and growing)…by what estimates? it seems to be a simple premise. The more one casts the net wide, there is bound to be bunch of suckers who would fall for the “ravishing offers”. I am surprised that pimps of all hues have not yet started marketing their “massage services” as yet! Again I am surprised that Outlook has not bothered to check for the lucrative advertisement deals which come licking up the industry “executives”. Or the media managers. Or that their subscription is pits and pathetic and only a certain section of demography reads it.

Who knows.

Yet, the picture of Sarna isn’t awe inspiring. The pose set is clearly reflective of the intellectual and moral rot in the system. And these bureaucrats are a representative of such a system.

I am also linking to the Delhi High Court judgement (pdf) which I came across. See if it makes sense for anyone to file a class action suit in the consumer court. I can, but I need time to do it.

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One has to be completely naive to believe it. Truly. There are enough pussies who believe the dished out crap and once they realize that they have been “shortchanged”, these assholes whine on these columns. I have to delete tonnes of crap piling up because of my prolonged absence from here.

I have been pushing for a community Wifi which is freely accessible. Yet, in the scheme of things, everything needs to be rationed. The only thing which is not is mercifully condoms which I believe, finds a lot of “reluctance” with the populace and explains the burgeoning population in the land.

A free community Wifi would definitely ease up the access. It would lead to content generation and perhaps new ideas. There can be ideas explored to fund it publicly or some advertisement driven model. Google has shown some way. Optic fiber is cheap. But there is institutional lethargy to implement new ideas. The existing apple cart would be sorely upset because the services are nationalized. But then, as I have repeatedly pointed out earlier, public money ought not to be spent on black holes like Employment Guarantee (NREGA) but where it matters the most.

It is a pathetic waste of spectrum for 3G. The existing players have gobbled up, no new players have come in the market and there is a whiff of a huge telecom scam. Much larger in scope and extent than the current IPL hoopla.

We are like this only.

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1) To the definition of broadband, TRAI maintains that they have adopted the ‘minimum’ definition of International Telecom Union (ITU) as the speed. Let’s see the context in which the definition of ‘broadband’ has been adopted in their “vision document”

Many people associate broadband with a particular speed of transmission or a certain set of services, such as digital subscriber loop (DSL) or wireless local area networks (wLANs). However, since broadband technologies are always changing, the definition of broadband also continues to evolve. Today, the term broadband typically describes recent Internet connections that range from 5 times to 2000 times faster than earlier Internet dial-up technologies. However, the term broadband does not refer to either a certain speed or a specific service. Broadband combines connection capacity (bandwidth) and speed. Recommendation I.113 of the ITU Standardization Sector defines broadband as a “transmission capacity that is faster than primary rate Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) at 1.5 or 2.0 Megabits per second (Mbits)”.

So there is NO question of this being ’256 kbps’ as is the current ‘definition’ of Broadband as we know it.

2) TRAI does not define the meaning of the term ‘fair usage policy’ or ‘unlimited internet’. This means that everything which is being advertised is against it’s rules and does not have the sanction of the regulator. To my question of taking action against the advertisement of such claims, TRAI is silent.

3) TRAI in it’s RTI application only mentioned about the various tariffs that need to be reported to it about 5-7 days in advance before they are introduced in the market. The tariffs are under “forbearance” and TRAI has no rule in framing the various tariff plans. But does it act when there are only a few players in the market? Does it act against the established oligopolies?

TRAI cannot deny me the information; I am filing a repeat RTI and also appealing against the the present reply to the appellate authority.

The fight against the established players and lobbies continues. The first step is to actually commit these idiots to “change the definition of broadband” from measly 256kbps to a bare minimum of 2Mbps as per the definition of ITU.

LETS SCREW THEM!!!

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