Tag Archives: Chinese

Not realizing the potential of Broadband

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A Polycom VSX 7000 camera used for videoconfer...

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Bureaucracy is restrictive. They are sozzled idiots who have no clue as to which way the wind is blowing. No doubt, TRAI is saddled with such idiots brimming up to the core.

I came across a brilliant write up by Keith Hudson (here) and he writes nailing the issue to the core:

And then there’s the educational potential of the Internet. When I wrote my book, Introduction to Computer-Assisted Learning (Chapman and Hall, 1984) — that is, before the Internet was invented — I envisaged that, by now, we would have vast educational programmes in all possible subjects beamed down from satellites. How naive I was! They still haven’t arrived. The formal university procedures and bureaucracy-controlled school systems still hold sway and cramp many more potential geniuses than they encourage. The poor bright boy or girl in a far-off Chinese or Indian village—or, so help us, increasingly in poor homes in the US or the UK—still hasn’t got access to effective teaching programmes that could be available on the Net. When this happens—one day!—then that will be yet another spanner in over-large bueaucratic empires.

Hence when I come across fancy experiments with OPLC projects, it isn’t the sole medium of instruction that helps. In any case, there is NO probable research or it’s outcome favoring the technology over the traditional methods. Technology can play it’s part as a supplement (e.g. Broadband) but not as a stand alone mechanism. A video conferencing in a remote village would actually help the children to explore the boundaries beyond their own physical limitations and confines but only if they have been primed to expect what is going to be shown to them. Here in lies the challange.

 

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S-Band Spectrum Scam India: ISRO in the dock

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It does not bode well for a country whose appointed Prime Minister (or whatever he fancies himself) whimpers and cowers and professes helplessness at the misdeeds of what is happening in and around. We live in charged situations and things are deteriorating at a rapid pace.

Corruption and nepotism is order of the day. So well, this S Band is a needed for “wireless broadband” and since spectrum is a scarce resource, there is money to be made at public expense. The deal is simple. Create a shell company, buy spectrum (or have it arranged to be transferred) and sell the equity to a foreign investor.

In effect, the foreign investor may be Chinese, American or of any hue or color. By a simple stroke, these guys get a toe hold in the state of security, a backdoor entry for them. In event of war, when communication needs would be paramount, these bastards would simply cut us out.

Hence, despite the huge brouhaha about the charges sticking out, the “zero sum game” of the losses and the “tamasha”, people are fed up. Although, I still don’t see any signs of “mass upheavals” all around barring perhaps the Chinese armed terrorists called as Naxalites and the on slaught of cheap human labor and sex traffickers from Bangladesh.

Therefore, The Statesman has correctly identified the Sunday Special as S Band Spectrum Scam and analyzed it’s ramifications.

I quote:

Devas was conceived in secrecy by an “incestuous” relationship with ISRO. Most of its board members and senior employees are former ISRO personnel who provide inside information. The deal was masterminded by three former scientific secretaries of ISRO. The ISRO headquarters is very much chairman-centric and of late has become a den of corruption and favouritism. They misrepresented facts to the then secretary, department of space, and misled the Space Commission and the Union Cabinet. The fact that a very one-sided contract was signed by Antrix with Devas on 28 January 2005 was never disclosed to the Space Commission or the Union Cabinet.

This is the reason why the news has gained so much prominence.

Here is a shocker (with my emphasis).

The S-band spectrum, defined as radio waves with frequencies that range from 2 GHz to 4 GHz, was allocated by the World Radio-communication Conference for terrestrial mobile communications services in the year 2000. Armed with this confidential information, Devas is supposed to have developed a novel commercial application in association with global experts and approached for S-band spectrum allocation at a throwaway price. Under the legally binding agreement, Devas would pay Antrix a total of $ 300 million over a period of 12 years. The cost of building the two satellites, GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A would be Rs 416 crore. The launching cost is extra. ISRO had approached Arianespace, a European consortium, for the launch of GSAT-6 because of delays in its own satellite launch programme. The hidden benefit of the use of 70 MHz S-band spectrum, according to the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, would be more than Rs. 200 lakh crore.

If this is not good enough, the author has made a clear case of why the guilty needs to be punished.

The emerging requirements of S-band spectrum by strategic government organizations and societal needs were ignored. Defence minister AK Antony woke up to the S-band requirements of the Army, Navy and Air Force only after the Cabinet decided to annul the deal. “The government is now conscious of the necessity of giving the required capability to the armed forces, paramilitary and other strategic organisations,” he said.

The author goes on to provide instances of serious national security lapses.

Between January 2005 and July 2010 Devas was busy selling the capacity to foreign vendors, getting foreign investment board clearances, attempting trials without witnesses and waiting for European technology to mature which they could sell as their own technology. It offloaded 17 per cent of its stakes to Deutsche Telekon (Singapore) for $75 million. In short, attempting bigger frauds and covering their tract as the satellites were getting ready.

Hence the big issue remains of “money laundering” by the established players, loss of paper trail and the likes.

It’s a pathetic scenario indeed.

2010 round up.

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This perhaps generates more cynicism than anything else. Over the past few months, I have become increasingly bitter with the telecom landscape in India. We have “expounded myths” about “millions” materializing from thin air to headlines dominated by three major trends

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.