Ring Side view of Indian Telecom Circus
I have been out of the wireless broadband loop for long. Any pointers to the kind of speeds or services? Here is the thread on the Indian Broadband Forum.
I have been always opposed to the wireless broadband initiatives because they fail on many counts. For plain vanilla surfing, it sounds like a good idea. But when it comes to the crunch, these fancy ideas fail in execution. Comments are on.
This one is a classic from Sushubh. BSNL Broadband provides a dialler for Linux and gives it in “exe” format!
Nothing could be worse than this. Unless we are talking of Home 125 Plan!
Here is a Digg post by another reader about the new 150MB data cap. It just doesnt get worse than this.
A long time reader of this blog calls BSNL employees as,”Bloody Shitty Nitpicking Langoors”.
Very appropriate for them.
This is awesome! BSNL has done it again! It has introduced a new plan which, if it doesnt make us the laughing stock of the entire f***ing world, nothing else would. It has introduced a new plan which offers a “free” download limit of 150MB.
If I had my way, I’d truly stuff this up the a** of the person who legitimised this plan. Even though, it doesnt make any difference to me as a person; nevertheless if media claims that this is the cheapest plan in the world, then you would know for sure that they are whoring around with the person who offers them the most advertising money.
Cheapstake bastardisation of this nation. It wouldn’t be surprising if UPA (and their pet poodle Rahul Gaand “i”) jumps in the fray and claims as the next best thing to Christ and pasta.
Mama Sonia would approve.
And so would Manmoron.
BSNL launched it’s IPTV service recently. There has been a usual media excitement and “buzz” about IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) making it’s debut in India much after it was planned. For the plain uninitiated, IPTV involves streaming of digital content via your wireline and set top box. Last but not the least, loads of divine intervention. MTNL had earlier launched it’s IPTV but there have been no concrete reviews about the same.
It all boils down to the content. The future lord over the masses is the one who could make sure that they control the keys to entertainment streaming in your drawing rooms. Presently, the choice remains limited to Direct to Home television (DTH), Cable TV and now IPTV. Cable TV is ham handed in it’s approach. With massive under declaration of viewers, the TV channels are hard hit for the “genuine” revenues. DTH is too restrictive in it’s clauses and hasn’t really set in the cash registers ringing. The majors are slowly realising the fact that it would need major investments and years before they can break even. However, I see no such sign of the same.
The present “gold rush” to control the media by whatever means is the key to the future power leverages. Media has the potential to shape up the public opinion and slowly the proliferation of the news channels/ magazines et al is a clear pointer to the fact. However, the lords of the whole game are the content delivery systems who are in a position to dictate the terms to the media moghuls. It would take huge investments to upgrade the cable wires; DTH by itself isn’t really exciting with content restrictions. IPTV may yet be the dark horse that has the potential to change the rules of the game.
In all this brouhaha, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has not been able to exert itself, as usual. It has been issuing statements off and on without realising as to what has hit it between the legs 
. It is caught unawares like a deer-in-the-headlights.
The ultimate killer would be a TiVo like thingy which comes with a personal Digital Video Recorder. In my opinion, it would be a boon to the consumers who are pestered by the advertisements even in the pay channels (which is totally unfair). The whole media is not yet geared towards treating customer like a king (which is anti-thesis to the so called management principles). We are slowly moving towards the consolidation of the services because players with deep pockets are the only ones that can survive the bloodbath.
While BSNL may have the theoretical first mover advantage, Airtel and Reliance have the potential to upset it’s apple cart.They would be sitting back to see what all potential pitfalls are there and would perhaps piggy back BSNL’s efforts to “educate” consumers about IPTV. If Airtel can crow about the “service gurantees”, I am sure that they can notch up some customers of their own. Yet, the age of the entertainment junkies seems to be clearly on it’s way out- IPTV has to look simple and less confusing about setting up the whole assembly. With it’s army of poorly trained JTO’s and it’s ill informed “call centre”, it is potential recipe for disaster. Reliance too has been making the right noises earlier on but with the present moribund marketing efforts, it is being left out of contention.
What possibly it can portend for the future? IPTV needs a critical mass before it can actually suceed. This means substantial investments and the need to tie up with the content service providers. This bodes well for the fat cats and media moghuls who can monetise their content to the highest bidder and sell most of it as “value added service”.
In my opinion, the real choice for the customer is to set up a community network so that content can be cached and streamed from a local server instead of attending to every request individually. This is a far fetched dream though. Yet, if this idea succeeds, we might just see the entry of nifty gadgets like Apple’s iTv which would double up as a personal TV recorder, a mini computer and it’s ability to connect to the net and download your choice of programmes (which incidentally would serve the multitude of masses anyway). Think about the possibilities. BSNL might just introduce a premium “talk channel” where it’s IPTV users might just interact with “aunties” of all hues over the phone to keep themselves hooked over the “premium sex chat lines”. It could make a killing out of it!
This idea incidentally is far fetched and I am sure that some prude would file a case against them for obscenity. Even though, ours is a nation of f***ers with the swelling billion plus people here.
IPTV does open up a large number of possibilties indeed. It remains to be seen as to how it would play out in the real world.
(Crossposted on Desicritics)
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.
