Image via Wikipedia

I must admit that I haven’t focussed on writing about the access devices; they are a natural corollary to any broadband access initiative. Let’s face it. A mobile screen is useless (most of the times) because a cramped interface cannot replicate the full blown access device.

It’s heartening to note that a cheap access device has been “manufactured”; it runs Ubuntu. However, as noted by many others, a different distro would have sufficed (top of the mind recall is Antix or Arch Linux). Yet, with modest specifications, as below, it’s really worth it.

• 700MHz ARM11
• 128MB of SDRAM
• OpenGL ES 2.0
• 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
• Composite and HDMI video output
• USB 2.0
• SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
• General-purpose I/O

A cheap monitor and a keyboard is available off the shelf in most of the places. The final cost may not be much, even for a developing country like India.

This may be way better than having a dummy terminal and distributed computing through Broadband.

Interestingly, Apple is rumored to shift it’s line to ARM processors.

Related articles

• $25 ARM Powered Desktop presented by Raspberry Pi Foundation (armdevices.net)
• Next Post (dinmerican.wordpress.com)
• Bridging the Digital Divide Takes More than Just Access (blogs.sitepoint.com)
• This computer (yes, computer!) costs $25 (venturebeat.com)
• UK game dev creates $25 Linux computer for education (slashgear.com)
• Raspberry Pi: A $25 Bare-Bones PC That Fits On Your Keychain (crunchgear.com)
• Game developer David Braben creates a USB stick PC for $25 (geek.com)
• Digital Divide / California : public investment to increase digital literacy (skillsinfo.wordpress.com)
• Bringing Broadband to Rural America (thinkup.waldenu.edu)
• National Broadband Map Shows Digital Divide (tech.slashdot.org)

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I remember the days of pathetic 56 kbps access on the telephone modem. The dial up access was atrociously expensive, the lines faced frequent disconnections and the overall experience was laced with frustrations. I writhed my hands in despair when I heard about Napster allowing unrestricted exchange of music residing on the hard drives. While I don’t condone this (for legal reasons) but it allowed unrestricted exchange of music one never knew ever existed! Napster died a horrible death due to unrelenting legal challenges by MPAA.

MPAA is a quasi union to protect the interests of the content creators. US has been a test bed of the way this contentious issue has evolved over the years. The MPAA has garnered a lot of bad press from the people who fuel the peer to peer networks. There has been a dissent generated from the ISP’s who claim that this kind of traffic chokes their network and cite FUD campaigns to announce the imminent breakdown of Internet; that the bandwidth would soon run out with the kind of content that is being shared.

In the Web 2.0 arena, interestingly, none of the players are making serious money but follow the basic “Christy” method of “harvesting of souls“. Content is created to dumb down the masses in name of entertainment and people hooked on to the “opium of masses” (based on the loose misrepresentation of Marx). Frankly, content creation involves mega budgets and creators look for perpetual “evergreening” of “copyright” in order to milk whatever is worth it.

In this scenario, it is a double pronged attack on the people who share something that is inaccessible or content that has been blocked because of complex copyright issues. For example, a movie having a theatrical release in US quickly goes through it’s DVD sales and then released “worldwide”. Peer to peer networks (Torrents or it’s variants) has changed the game altogether. The moment a DVD is released, it is “ripped” and uploaded for all. The “seeders” abound for the “leechers” and the cycle continues.

The speeds are an issue worldwide. Primarily, the governments have encouraged faster speeds by tax breaks and other incentives to promote digital lifestyles and the positive spinoffs from that. Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea and Japan have lead the way. Recently, Australia announced it”s grand plan to push rural broadband impetus. US has had an acrimonious debate about the role of FCC (their version of TRAI) and the paltry definition of broadband access at 256kbps. Despite the intensive lobbying, nothing really has come out of it.

Piracy has kept pace with the “increasing” speeds so as to say. Legislation has not kept pace with the attempts to thwart this growth. Europe has seen some activity which led to confiscation of Pirate Bay servers and as a result the public rose in revolt against this “misstep” and formed a “Pirate party”. Interestingly, it even managed to win at the hustings and got a seat in the parliament.

I feel that “rooting” out the piracy is impossible. If Governments find means to thwart Internet access or even “slow down speeds”, there are people to bypass these issues in the name of unfettered access.

I don’t endorse piracy in the present form (to be on the right side of law) but there is an inherent need for people to share. This basic impulse cannot be wished away for times to come.

Broadband is going to change the equations in the way we connect. I don’t have any teary eyed dreams of a “global connected village” though but it’s a good feeling that resources can be shared by one and all.

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Choosing a handset that fulfills all my requirements is a tough task indeed; I still have to see Android getting a commercial release in India. Most of the second hand Korean, Taiwanese crap have signed up for the same which means nothing to the established Finns who swear by their “open source” Symbian. I would love to see something like a mobile version of Ubuntu in my hands with development of “plug ins” to drive forth the customisability of the device and to deliver a seamless performance for the product to access Internet with it’s applications. I can foresee a day when I can access my desktop and storage across the range of devices through Internet. I can already do so for my bookmarks stored via Opera.

This sounds pretty cool because one is no longer inhibited by the platform and Internet becomes the seamless interface. Touch is becoming the new focus of hardware because it has become possible for hardware to incorporate the same.

iPhones remain overpriced, as usual and I would not bet my money for something as that. I am distressed by the fact that technology should act as an enabler and not add to the digital divide that we are facing. It is the ability to harness the day to day technology in our lives that would define the “success” or failure of the product.

My search for the “right” phone (device) continues.

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I have a feeling that if a company could offer free broadband access to spur on the sales for it’s voice calls, it would go against the conventional line of thinking. For long, I have always felt that since the voice calls are on the declining trend (as per the telecom companies claims), broadband would be a lifeline in form a value added service.

However, despite all the hoopla of IPTV, Online Gaming and unlimited broadband (at a piflling 256k- a page loads slower than I pee) hasn’t taken off in this year. 2007 may still be full of false starts and promises.

Yet some companies in UK are promising “free broadband” with some talk plans. How good is it? A recent story in BBC underlines this point. It says that users of “free broadband” are less than happy. The primary reason seems to be more people signing up than the exchanges can support.

A “quote” from the story:

However, it’s disappointing to see that the majority of providers are failing to accompany the growth in customers numbers by sufficient growth in customer service operations, and the required investment in their technology, to ensure that they are looking after customer needs in an acceptable manner.

Interestingly, despite the fact that British Telecom has been opened up for the last mile access to the private players, it has actually increased BT’s revenues. Apart from earning revenue from the private players, it can market it’s own plans aggressively. It takes hard work but then the boffins in India expect you to pay and not get the service in return. British Telecom is the “baap” of BSNL- the illgotten progeny that refuses to part away it’s “bastardious” ways of dealing with it’s customers.

Free Broadband may remain a pipe dream. Well until the time the critical mass can support the offer. Computers are still pricey for most and would remain out of reach for majority. And so would the digital divide grow and grow till it is unmanageable.

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Purchasing power parity or PPP:

This is an estimate of the exchange rate required to equalise the purchasing power of different currencies, given the prices of goods and services in the countries concerned. PPP exchange rates are used for a number of purposes, most notably to compare the standard of living of two or more countries. It is necessary because comparing the gross domestic products (GDP) using market exchange rates does not accurately measure differences in income and consumption. Market exchange rates fluctuate widely, and the purchasing power parity hypothesis suggests that the long run equilibrium value is that which yields purchasing power parity.

(As usual, the ever useful Wikipedia comes to my rescue).

Well, this is a broad definition of PPP, Further, the Wikipedia discusses it as:

A common measure of the standard of living is the per capita Gross Domestic Product, which is calculated by dividing the GDP of a country by its population. In order to compare the standard of living in two nations, one first needs to express these numbers in the same currency. Using actual exchange rates when making these comparisons can give a very misleading picture of living standards. The PPP method is used as an alternative.

However, there are various factors that undermine the true value of PPP and it’s not virtous. I won’t go in details here, but suffice to say that PPP can allow us to measure the consumption patters across countries. Roughly speaking (I using approximations here) it is the value of the goods being purchased by citizens in a nation compared to other nations. For example, if one dollar can purchase 1 litre of petrol in US and the same dollar can purchase 10 litres in xyz country- the PPP of US dollar is more than the xyz country.

This is a rough idea but suffice for our present purposes.

Now Atanu writes in:

I keep hearing “India is cheap” from people who are going around comparing some Indian prices while carrying US dollars in their pockets. But Indians don’t carry around dollars. They carry Indian rupees when they go to the market. To an American some stuff (and only some stuff) may be cheap in India. But then if the American is Bill Gates, everything is cheap. It is not the subjective experience of a person that I am concerned with here. I am concerned with whether the prices that a person faces in India is objectively higher than the prices a person faces in, say, Canada. Since prices one pays translate to costs one bears, it is important to measure costs to understand what it means that India is more costly than Canada.

(Emphasis mine)

The same discussion is carried forth in second post :

Costs can be measured in terms of time, provided we have an invariant. In our case, we really don’t have an invariant because the time to earn a unit of money varies from person to person, and from region to region. However, there is already a measure of average incomes in a specific location. That is the total production of final goods and services measured in monetary terms over a year for a specific collective of people that is called the gross domestic product (GDP). GDP divided by the number of people gives you the GDP per capita.

To put in simpler words, calculate the time it takes to earn the same amount of money in measurable quantifiable units of time- like years, months, days, hours etc. By the rationale, Atanu explains:

I have done some back of the envelope calculations and it appears that India is many times more expensive than the US in pretty much any goods and services I measure. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has observed that Indians can afford a lot less stuff (goods and services) than Americans can. Basically, the cost of any good is the time that you have to spend to produce an equivalent amount of stuff so that you can exchange it for that good. Indians on average produce less stuff per unit of time and therefore they can buy less stuff per unit of time as compared to Americans.

I hope this is clear here. So, for the first time, we can explain in concrete terms- the affordability of the telecom services. I don’t have the exact figures for US but what I hear is that the telecom companies charge equivalent of $70 dollars for unlimited Mbps Speeds (I guess around 10Mbps download and 3 Mbps uploads) with unlimited calling to ANY number within US. Of course, it comes in with a locked in period of a specified time but then, we are not going in the details there. At current exchange rates, it would be roughly Rs.3500/- which is indeed highly undesirable. Would you pay this kind of an obscene amount to surf internet?

Now, one has to be suffering from a terminal case of “BSNL itis” (so as to say- an incurable disease which stunts normal intelligence and renders an individual incapable of thinking normally)- that the telecom services are “cheap” by any standards. Well, what we have seen is a drastic fall in prices- but to call it one of the THE cheapest- would be sheer stupidity.

Fine. We are being exposed to this inane crap for ages. We all know it that Broadband access is present in this country. That it is “available” but not widespread as yet. Still we persist in labelling this as “Broadband” or whatever version we have in this nation. The prices are expensive figuratively speaking, but those who can surf, chat/ email should consider yourself lucky. We are just 1.14% of the TOTAL INDIAN POPULATION who can afford computers. This number was gleaned off from National Sample Survey held recently.

So, what we get for whatever our money’s worth? A watered down service. Don’t blame anyone i.e. the ISP’s / the Government/ or Mr. Maran. The root cause of the problem is that we are a third world nation and we are going to remain as such; as long as the Congress is determined to keep it that way. We are still in the kbps stage and I don’t foresee any “light at the end of dark tunnel”.

We are moving in towards a massive digital divide which is going to become more acute as the days pass by.

By the way, this is part of the series of Digital Divide that I had promised long time back. As usual, I d suggest that you read thisWikipedia entry that defines the scope of digital divide. I shall take it up some time later.

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Is this something to be proud of? I really wonder. Frankly, Telecom has given me enough gist to write about, enough innanities, BSNL thrashing to the core and well my pet project to start on Digital Divide. I must admit that I am still constrained by lack of time.

The recent flurry of posts was to finish the 500 milestone as soon as possible. Some feeling of satisfaction. We have really gone through a lot early on to keep this up. Even toyed with the idea of having advertisements. Yet, I remain opposed to it because I wish to have a clutter free environment for myself. The same argument can be extended for others too. In any case, it’s easy to block the advertisements by Java Script in Opera which by itself is a no brainer. Sorry, I don’t use Firefox and never liked it. Would you want to have double clickable blinking adverts here? Or me whoring to established interests trying only to highlight the corporate goobledegook? Or just a collection of news which others are trying to do? My efforts are to present a different, often ugly face of what we see yet don’t realise.

There is a lot that can be achieved in Indian Telecom. Yes, we have come far from the tyranny of BSNL monopoly where getting a phone connection meant that you could count your age in due process. It gave them the divine right, as if pre ordained by the creator Himself, to leech on our sanity and our common sense.

It is a far cry from what used to happen. Still, there is a lot of scope for improvement. Classical economists would surely argue about the “business” of governance, that it has no business to be in business in the first case.But, we were wrecked by institutionalised mornishness which refuses to go away as time passes.

Well, I have spoken enough. This remains my baby and I am glad to have nurtured it. With tons of thanks to Sushubh who made this platform happen. Thanks to all you readers who have given in their own incisive comments. Thanks to the Indian Bloggers who have not featured this in the only category of “Indian Telecom”- I can’t imagine myself to be in the company of those “motivated” people. Better off alone than make a sorry ass of myself to myself!

Last but not the least. Thanks to the telecom companies to take the criticism to heart, dismissing me as rants from a opinionated idiot and leaving the matters status quo. Many a times, I have deleted libellous statements which would have surely flamed you. Yet, in a public platform, I avoided.

This blog has surely turned inward looking. There is a lot I would want to change, specifically when we are lagging behind all the major parameters. It would be assinine to expect Mbps becoming a common place and we would still be saddled with narrow band; with congested mobile networks for times to come. With a lax regulatory framework and equally assinine Department of Telecom. This would remain a cash cow for the ministers whom we elect them “democratically” for everything.

Yes, this is India.

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Atanu says:

Now cell phones and growth in GDP is positively correlated. For every 1 percent increase in teledensity, the GDP growth rate goes up 0.6 percent. (Figures for illustration only.) It is not easy to tease out which direction the causal relationship is, if at all there is a causal relationship. There need not be a causal relationship, merely a correlation. For instance, more cell phones and more GDP could be both due to the underlying factor that the country has suddenly become very very successful in BPO services.

There is an excellent explaination for cause and it’s effect preceeding this observation.

I would definitely want to know the same growth of GDP for Broadband reach. Is it the same as mobile growth or higher? I personally feel that tangible benefits for Broadband access would be more than for mobiles.

First, we need educated people to work on computers. So, education would have a positive spin off.

Secondly, as the benefits accrue from information access, it would perhaps act as a “peer effect” and a motivation to learn. Of course, Broadband can double up as means to stream videos/ content/podcasts.

Thirdly, it would create a REAL employment with tangible assets; a demand for better services like access roads and electricity. This is however, an idealised scenario.

Overall, increased efficiency and GDP growth that a nation can be proud of. And less of a burden of digital divide.

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This link comes from Mr Dipanjan’s blog on Stephen Roach and Gini Index. This makes eminent sense in Indian context and I would quote selectively from Morgan Stanley report on Gini coefficient. (Emphasis mine)

This can be seen in their (US and China)so-called Gini coefficients — a statistical measure of the dispersion of income shares within a country. A Gini Index reading of “0” represents perfect equality, with each segment of the income distribution accounting for a proportionate share of total income. Conversely, a reading of “100” represents perfect inequality, with the bulk of a nation’s overall personal income being concentrated at the upper end of the distribution spectrum. In other words, the higher the Gini Index, the more unequal the income distribution.

China’s Gini is 45; India’s 33.

Some salient highlights of the report:

Courtesy of the hyper-speed of sharply accelerating Internet penetration, the global labor arbitrage has pushed into areas that historically have been unaccustomed to wage competition.

The Internet has forever changed the competitive climate for most white-collar knowledge workers.

That brings low-cost, well-trained, highly-educated workers in Bangalore, Shanghai, and Eastern and Central Europe into the global knowledge-worker pool.

In short, the IT-enabled global labor arbitrage is a guaranteed recipe for mounting income inequality.

Stephen Roach makes a very significant observation here which has a REAL bearing for us.

Significantly, Chinese income disparities in the Internet age may well have a very different connotation than in the past. With increased IT connectivity in western and central China — mainly in the form of the village kiosk — the rural poor now have real-time access to the “outside world.” This gives them a very vivid picture of the prosperity they are missing. In that vein, the Internet has the potential to spark resentment and social instability in China’s two-track development model — the very last thing the government wants.

Without getting in my personal biases against Chinese, there has been an overall development in some fields. Notably, in real estate and communications. However, this has come at a great social upheaval cost.

Similarly, as our Economy goes in the “service mode” without adequate back up of manufacturing, we are heading for a sure fire recipe for disaster. The outbound calls from US are not going to be there for ever; as the political climte hots up in Middle East and vulnerable to currency fluctuations, that would be our underbelly.

However, as computerisation spreads, it would be a test case for managing the regional aspirations. With extreme lopsided development and a perennial hostage to regional interests, we wouldn’t be able to see the kind of development babus in Planning Commission hope for. The whole premise of the Indian Economy is based on “trickle down effect” which hasn’t percolated beyond the jet set and the elite.

It’s the same “middle class” that’s bumbling with oppurtunity, though I don’t see a visible rise in the consumption except for “foot falls in the malls”. That isn’t the mark of development.

We would like to see more equitable development with adequate representation to all sections of society. Broadband is an enabler in the process, though I must admit that it isn’t the most important thing.

Stephen Roach’s observation that once the regional aspirations are not adhered to, it would cause a massive unrest ring true for India too. We are seeing a huge influx of populations from Uttar Pradesh,Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa (the so called BIMARU states) which only goes on to prove that despite the big ticket announcements, employment is virtually nil with worst performance on Physical Quality of Life Indicators (PQLI).

This is main reason that’s keeping India down. I must hasten to add that having BSNL as glorified buffons hasn’t really helped the matters.

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I don’t like the Movable Type platform they have but this is about it. All appeals to set up a WP solution fell on deaf ears. Still wondering, what’s with WP that people don’t seem to like it?

The whole purpose is to get a wider audience for the presumed “movement”; Let’s hope the mainstream media gets interested.

What happens after I get unlimited Broadband for a cheaper price. Well, I start campaigning for Digital Divide and Open Source with renewed vigour. Of course, once after my exams are done and dealt with. That’s another headache apart from BSNL!

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So, it seems that their plans are on full steam ahead. Let me see if I can get some pics on line. I still have no idea about their tariffs but wouldn’t it be cool to have 1mbps for 500 per month unlimited? Or scalable bandwidth when you are file sharing or launched VoIP applications?

I am a bandwidth whore and surely there are others who have the same feeling.

On the flip side, I am missing writing all around here but life’s been twisted beyond reason. It’s ultimately the question of the career; I need to scale up my own efforts.

I shall keep you informed as usual; RSS feeds are the way to go. I noticed there are 71 readers ONLY. Is that an indication of popularity or unawareness?

No further news from CNN-IBN. I do finally agree with most of you to extend the idea beyond the narrow confines of the blog. It would do good to get some readership in order to generate a public opinion. Though, it’s very unflattering to work for a foreign owned media channel; Techwhack doesn’t have resources to get dedicated servers nor any other way to get multiple hosts to ensure that this blog is never down. We are trying to make the best of the given circumstances. These guys are awash with some serious cash. Plus, there seems to be some hassle with the CMS; I fail to understand as to why they aren’t implementing Word Press. It’s Open Source, the code is for everyone to see and setting up is a kids play. Even a BSNL employee can learn this. All they have to do is give the remote login; keep the administrator privileges to themselves like the plugins, templates et al. If they can’t do it, Techwhack can provide Word Press solutions. Yes, we’d do it free of cost for them! Though, I shudder at the thought of having any trace of Microsoft around. Puke…

The established media interests have a single minded dedication to scale up “eye balls” to ensure that their investments show immediate returns. For the same reason, I refused to run any advertisements here because it would have been an uphill struggle to ensure traffic and hope to capitalise that in revenues. Would you like to see underwear or sanitary napkins adverts here? You would see them on TV. (Interestingly, news channels haven’t aired any condom adverts so far- do they seriously doubt the viewership that it’s not fit for those?) While there has been no offer about remuneration, it would a trade off between readership and independence. The moment any post is “edited”, the deal is off. There aren’t many people who read blogs; by and large it remains opinionated and I doubt whether it has any effect on the “thinking patterns” of humans. The most inane blogs get most readership.

There is a lot more planned for the write up. As soon as I have some breathing time, it shall be up. I really want to focus on the Digital Divide for times to come. This is indeed a serious issue. Plus of course, a lot of Microsoft bashing and Open Source promotion. Once my thoughts are framed up, I shall put them here.

Surely, this blog has morphed from a “link catcher” and “telecom news” to something different. If only the Indian Telecom evolved to some decent standards.

Meanwhile, I did put up some links. One is notably on Bruce Perens and other on Richard Stallman. Both these guys are twisted in their own way but likeable all the same. Your comments are invited and welcome.

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More than reporting the antics of the telecom companies, it’s indeed unpleasant feeling to try and bring out “corporate types” indulging in lies and counter lies. However, the last word isn’t said as yet and it’s very difficult to bring about a change specially when entrenched interests are powerful monetarily.

In the following posts, I shall be looking at the looming digital divide. I chanced on couple of websites and interesting posts. It takes time to read and choose as to which is most relevant for India.

I hope to stir up some kind of a debate. As usual, your inputs are valuable. If you come across any site, please do mention in the comments.

Is digital divide going to bridge all that is needed for this country? No. But as aspiration levels increase, this divide would surely cause enough unrest. And the new age “casteism”. We are all indeed “blessed”, so to say to have the power of computing at our finger tips.

I would want EVERYONE to have the same access. That’s the intention. Insrumountable problems indeed but it would be worth it to make it happen even if on a small scale.

On the regular telecom scene, I shall mention if anything major happens. Otherwise, it’s the same bunch of actors and buffons on the stage.

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However, the pace is changing rapidly and slowly we are getting stuck in the vortex of past, unable to extract ourselves out of it.

Telecom is one major issue. Increasingly, my focus is turning towards the looming digital divide. If we want to ensure that the whole nation is a partner in the progress, we need to work on this issue. Together.

Unfortunately, the principal actors to ensure the spread of Information Technology are the familiar villians- either as a part of the lame duck coalition at the Centre or the massive behemoth that is akin to an ageing dinosaur. Mercifully, the ageing animal cannot replicate itself; or else we would have seen it’s ugly spawn all around. You wish to give it a nice kick in it’s balls and then run. But you never know how it may react.

Despite the sense of cynicism in recent times, I shall look forward to write on the bridge the digital divide. Why is it important, you may ask. Well, the progress of a nation can only be counted as an integrated whole. So far, we have made a tremendous progress in multiplying and increasing our population. A fact that the entire world endorses. Never mind the depressing nay sayers, our rapid population growth would soon over shadow everything else. One thing that we can be “justifiably” proud of!

(At the back of my mind though- why did the mothers decide to have most of them to be left loose and work in BSNL/MTNL?)

India is way behind China in IT front. So says the Inquirer. It has the report from Bombay- Rajesh Jain quoting the pathetic computer spread and even more pathetic “broadband”. A worthy thought for the dumb asses in NASSCOM, who like to bray(crow) about the “IT SUPERPOWER”? It is a “feel good” factor for couple of them; for rest of us, the infastructure hassles. And BSNL!

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There is a comparison with the spread of electricity in US with the present day structure of broadband. Mind you, Indian Telecom companies follow discriminatory tactics like locking in with the crappy modems, or long term contracts. Much like their counterparts in the west. Primarily, we as consumers aren’t united in our approach. Nor there is any pressure group like media espousing the cause of Broadband.

Dealing with the frustration of poor spread of electricity in rural areas, a Rural Electrification act was passed. In effect this meant that municipalities were able to generate their own electricity. Unthinkable in Indian terms but remember, this was in 1935.

In 1935, he created the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), which gave loans and other help to small towns and farmer cooperatives interested in setting up their own power systems. The REA turned out to be one of the New Deal’s most successful programs. Within two years, hundreds of new municipal power utilities were up and running across the country, and within 20 years, virtually all of rural America had electricity, provided either by rural co-ops or big utilities spurred to action by municipal competition.

Last year, sensing their citizens were being stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide, Philadelphia’s leaders launched an ambitious plan to blanket the entire city with wireless Internet service. To provide universal, affordable Internet access, Philadelphia plans to construct a gigantic “wireless mesh network”—a system of interconnected antennas placed on streetlights, traffic signals, and public buildings. Each of these “nodes” broadcasts a broadband signal, which connects up with other nodes to create a cloud of Internet access for PCs, laptops and wireless devices. The technology is similar to the “Wi-Fi hotspots” that have popped up at cafes and libraries across the country.

Much like the Internet lampostsI had mentioned earlier.

Community Internet has the potential to revolutionize and democratize communications in this country. And that may be the reason why big cable and telephone companies and their political allies have launched a sophisticated misinformation campaign.

Much of this has relevance for India too.

Exisiting “Wi-Fi” networks operate in “junk bands” cluttered with signals from cordless phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors and other consumer devices. At lower frequencies–like in the television band—signals travel farther and can go through walls, trees and mountains. Opening up some of this spectrum would make Community Internet systems much faster and cheaper to deploy, allowing a new generation of broadband entrepreneurs to enter the market. The broadcasters are about to return a sizable chunk of spectrum as part of the digital television transition, a portion of which could be reserved for Community Internet if Congress doesn’t auction it all off to the cell phone companies.

While India’s IT “prowess” is debateable, we are clear laggards in mass adoption of Information Technology. It would be out of scope here to list out the reasons, but then here are the statistics for US.

According to the Department of Commerce, 95 percent of new jobs created will demand computer skills. And a 2001 Brookings Institution study estimated the widespread adoption of basic broadband could add $500 billion to the U.S. economy and create 1.2 million new jobs per year. Simply empowering local governments and community groups, in coordination with private entrepreneurs, to provide universal affordable, broadband may be the single best thing we can do to make America the pre-eminent economy—and democracy—of the 21st century.

Imagine the amount of employment generation it would be for India.

As I mentioned before, we need to have imaginative solutions for nagging problems.

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First define a rural area. On an arbitrary basis, it is an area of less than 5000 population. The income levels are much less defined. Similary, its hard to believe the existing government definition of “Below Poverty Line” ( so called BPL ) families. Again, they are defined as those who are earning less than $1 per day. I would appreciate if anyone corrects me on this please. I couldn’t find any reference online.

It’s hard to believe the statistics. In that case, what is the measure of rural consumption? It is the foodgrains. Over the past 10+ years, as the neo liberalistic policies have taken shape, we have seen a sharp decline in the consumption of foodgrains. So much so, malnutrition has become an epidemic. On the wayside and not related to telecom. Do you know that Iron Deficiency Anaemia is one of the commonest clinical conditions seen in India? A clear reflection of lopsided dietary patterns.

In this scenario, the falling consumption of foodgrains means that rural folk are earning less.The policies that were supposed to help them ( infact every policy- damned policy is designed to help them ) haven’t worked. And so does the capitalistic model which states that income would trickle down to the downtrodden. Well, so has the leftist policies ( the bloody corpse worshippers ) that believes in redistribution of wealth, has worked in their bastions. Infact, unreported in the mainstream media, West Bengal has very poor health care indicators, much less than the national average.

So, assuming the poor people would spend their money on food, where is the test case for rural mobile telephony? Nope, it isnt there. Firstly because the mobile handsets need to affordable. Secondly, the high recurring costs. Despite the claims that tariffs are among the lowest in the world. Pooh pooh.

I believe that Broadband networks- through fixed line telephony would make perfect sense. First, in the field of education and get them in the mainstream. Secondly, most of the outsourcing and the data entry jobs can be moved in the interior of the country. Of course, this is exmplotation of the labour- still they would be much better off than depending on the traditional methods which hasn’t yeilded any results.

TRAI is subsiding the costs of setting up mobile networks, when instead it should force BSNL to open up it’s last mile and allow other private players to offer their telephony sevices. Of course, some babu sitting up isn’t happy to hear this.

Only the fixed line telephony would be able to shrink costs and offer a long term viable solution to digital divide. Mobile telephony would just eat up spectrum and nothing else. Of course, on the flip side, there is a perfect case for the likes of BSNL who have managed to get subscribers from these very areas. Would it mean that it would have to share the network? Or is it a reflection of underserved area with a huge pent up demand? Time would tell.

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This comes in the wake of reported pronouncements that Maran would ask Bill Gates to reduce the price for Windows Starter Edition.

Let me start off with a discliamer here- I have a deep disgust for proprietary software and specially Microsoft. I am really wondering whether a curtailed software would even be sufficient for anyone’s needs. There was a huge hullaballo about thee ways and means Microsoft has shortcharged the customers.

In any case, piracy woes have struck Microsoft, specially in the developing countries. It has been taking “proactive steps” to safeguard its “software”. Bug ridden that is.

Mr Maran, do you know about Linux? Specially Ubuntu Linux? If you give them your address, they would ship the Cd’s anywhere to your destination, FREE of cost. It’s different version, called as Edubuntu is available for free download and has been making news specially as it is tailored for the education community.

Sub 10000 PC is a myth- something that would severly curtail the performance aspect- of course, you would expect the people to be dumb morons and take the bait.

The arguments are mainly academic, whether or not its possible to get in a sub 10k PC. The point here is that you are refusing to look at the alternatives like thin client server model. This would surely go a long way in addressing the digital divide. Perhaps you could focus your attention on BSNL opening up the last mile and the VSNL acting funny to deny access to the ISP’s by means of high usage costs. Or even perhaps, you could try and lobby the Finance ministry to remove the “service tax” on each and everything included.

There’s a lot that can be done- and no need to ask ole pal Billy. He has enough people who hate him to the core of their hearts.

Disclaimer: This is by no way an endorsement of Ubuntu Linux- yet, there are some people who are willing to ship costly CD’s all the way across the world. And of course minus any licensing restrictions. I wanted to highlight this point only.

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Hindu Business Line says that BSNL is “studying the impact” of One India calling number. This means that the whole country is going to be treated as a single entity to place calls. There goes the discussion on Carrier Access Codes- something that BSNL doesnt want at all. Mr Maran, why don’t you act proactively for a change now? Who is the real boss in the Indian Telecom scene? The cartel or the “Regulator” or Department of Telecom? In any case, if they are thinking on those lines, it’s worth the effort anyway. Reliance has shown the way- death of distance accordoing to them. What prevents others to emulate them?

Financial Express reports that BSNL may provide cell phones on demand. Numbers look preetty only in account books or perhaps newspaper reports. Mr Sinha- have you really bothered to check the quality of mobile phone services? Millions would make sense then. As the private operators decide to expand in the hinterland( where BSNL has been making hay)- it would face increased competition.

Sify.com reports that BSNL is eyeing the Content market worth 500 crores. Again the “magic figures”. Fair enough. I believe that content is the future driver of the growth models. Reliance realised it at the launch of their own services. Kudos Reliance. Frankly you seem to have screwed up in the wrong places and got it straight in the right places. There is no other way to describe it. Others are slowly catching up with their “portals”. Offering Internet through GPRS(sucks frankly) for usurious rates.

Finally, Business Standard reports that there is no plan to merge MTNL and BSNL.

Oh well, the neocons in the government ae going to slowly disvest it. Our FM needs money- through taxation policies in era of falling interest rates to selling off the family silver to fund “Bharat Nirman” something that everyone knows that its not going to happen. There are enough candidates to proclaim the same plan.
For example, this lackey who writes on Financial Express about bridging the digital divide. He insists that 74% of FDI is needed to fund the same idea. Oh well, FM, you have strong contacts in media too. These are the traitors, I believe in that very strongly, who routinely dish out prescriptions without realising the import of their words.

Where is the censorship?

Watch this space.

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Over the past 2 days, there has been a quiet tectonic shift in the Indian Telecom; I have yet to see it’s condemnation. First, Maran insists that Access Deficit Charge(ADC) should stay on to subsidise BSNL for rural operations I fail to understand as to how this is actually helping the growth of telecom. In any case, it’s a sheer fallacy that BSNL is increasing it’s wireline infrastructure in the rural areas. Buoyed by increased demand for mobile and CDMA services, it is getting congested. Hence, the percieved benefits of affordable telephony are simply missing.

Further, Broadband would remain a pipe dream and a whole generation would grow up with a digital divide. This is not in the best interests of the nation.

Now, the juvenile fascination with merger between MTNL and BSNL. Why dont they leave these two companies alone? In anycase, we have had to suffer them for years together. “Synergies” would only double the misery. Period. More than that, it may be a prelude to selling them en block since either alone it wouldn’t make a good selling proposition to any “foreign buyer”. Don’t get me wrong here. I d still hold that it is an attempt to subvert our crucial infrastructure.

A significant development this week; Singtel upped it’s investment in Airtel. I had earlier mentioned that Singapore based companies remained a front for Chinese to enter India through backdoor. This is indeed a graver security threat ; any economist would know. I vae no idea as to why BSNL persisted with Huawei modems and not anyone else. Why patronise the Chinese and not spur on development in India for the same?

What is more disturbing here is the typical PRO speak here. It says and I quote,”We believe that SingTel’s increase in the stake is an expression of confidence in India,” said New Delhi-based Bharti Tele-Ventures.

All in all, I d still hold that Indian Telecom party has lot to achieve on it’s own rather than stand on the crutches of foreign funds. It is debatable. Still wondering. Reliance and Tata’s have considerable presence in India- we don’t get to hear much on that front. Why Bharti and their ilk are diluting their stakes in their own infrastructure?

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What could be done to increase the broadband penetration in India? Arguably, this is not an easy question that could be answered. This perhaps brings head all the previous posts where in I had mentioned about the regulatory mess and telecom muddle. As to how TRAI is basically ineffectual in enforcing minimum standards and how the telecom operators are happy to line their pockets with money.

The benefits of increasing Internet penetration are manifold. It has been conclusively shown that increase in the telecom sector leads to growth in the GDP. This fact should not be lost to the policy makers. While in media, the companies tend to pat on their backs to congratulate themselves about the increase in telecom density, the truth is far from what is made up. It is difficult to pinpoint any factor that may bring about an increase in the broadband reach. I shall try and lay out a case for the same.

There is felt demand for any goods and the supplier sidesteps in to fulfill the same. This is the fundamental rule of economics. Once the demand is robust enough, supply side has to stand up to expectations. However, in India, supply in terms of telecom operators has taken it lightly so far. There is minimum stress on the quality of the services. Back it up with ineffectual regime and you have a disaster. This is what is being replicated across board.

Literacy is one factor that can fuel the demand for the same. As literacy grows, it brings about a critical viewpoint towards the prevailing issues in the society. Access for the same is mandatory for health care indicators and overall growth of the economy. Any nation cannot claim itself to be a “superpower” as long as the quality of the manpower resources cannot stand up to scrutiny. It is shameful that after 50+ years of independence we have one of the largest burdens of illiterates in this country.

The reasons cannot be accounted here though. Broadband access through cheap computers holds the real potential to replace the traditional methods of teaching. Fact is that existing ways to teach do not factor in the involvement of either teachers or students. In that case, audio visual content can vastly enhance the delivery of educational materials to the children with the option for a feedback on the same. I can foresee streaming audio visual content through existing optic fiber cables in the rural primary schools. This coupled with other incentives could really increase the outreach of the Sarv Siksha Abhiyan that is being planned by the government.

For this, I propose open scale architecture of networks, which are easy to update. The best possible solution is Linux. Windows based Operating System would create a headache for licensing and updates. Given the customizability of Linux in local languages, it would make much more sense to lay stress on traditional knowledge systems rather than teaching alien concepts to children. What basically is required is the open box thinking, rather than moth eaten hair brained ideas that rot in mountains of files all over.

This is only possible if the taxation is reduced. This year’s budget has tried to address this pressing problem, without any headway. The fact is that we need cheaper chips and motherboards, rather than fancy Intels running Windows. Most of the computers are designed with the object of keeping gaming in mind. However, Open Source projects have given a credible answer to the pressing digital divide. It might be possible to set up IIT’s K-Yan which provides a perfect tailor made solution to the obviate the need for a computer. It has built in projector with a DVD player and a computer. Produced on a mass scale it could be real cost effective solution. However, for that we need to weed out the taxes and give a tax holiday. For all the idiocy in Bangalore, the IT capital of India, a sizeable tax could be collected from the millionaires. Media has become woolly eyed and goes in raptures as and when either Infosys or Wipro is mentioned.

This brings us to the next aspect. If India really is the IT nation with companies like Infosys and Wipro serving the western companies, why not force them to branch out to have a stable Operating System based on Linux? A food for thought? The brain capital could be utilized better hiving off separate divisions for development of India specific computer. Simputer was a great concept but never really took off. For all their claims, let Mr. Murthy declare his intent to give something back to this country in a sizeable and significant manner, rather than chase foreign companies who are not loyal anyway. More than money, Mr. Murthy, you could earn goodwill.

To make this happen, we need bandwidth. TRAI reduced the international bandwidth rates, which brought my earlier contention in clear focus. At the heart of these companies, profit-making motive is the real reason. While corporate customers are able to negotiate down to earth prices, higher access costs are passed on to the customers, based on the assumption to pay indefinitely. However, despite the media hoopla behind the TRAI’s action, the most important factor is to reduce the domestic bandwidth rates. Once the local access charges are reduced, it would make real sense to end consumer. As long as it does not happen, TRAI is fooling itself that broadband would really increase. For the same reason, there would not be fall in the International Long Distance rates because much depends on the carriage fees and termination charges. Ultimately, the core issue needs to be addressed.

For all this, the equipment needs to be manufactured in India. This budget did allocate a paltry sum to C-Dot, the sick manufacturing arm of the government, but clearly much needs to be done to bolster research and development in telecom equipment. Importing the same benefits only the foreign companies and leads to outflow of foreign exchange. The incremental costs are higher as a result needed for maintenance.

These are some suggestions to increase the broadband spread. As I mentioned much needs to be done to spur on growth and generate demand to really affect the rapidly growing digital divide.

Discuss on: Sify Broadband, Tata Indicom, Airtel Broadband, Reliance Broadband, MTNL – BSNL Broadband, Dial Up, Others

This post was submitted by Dr. Abhishek Puri on the Broadband Blog on Techwhack.

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