I decided to stick around after lunch time today to file in the application. It is a simple process. One has to purchase a postal order (from any post office in the country), attach it to the application after filling in the details on postal order (for 10 bucks) and you are good to go.

Submit it to the PIO and wait for the answer from them. I wonder what has been the reaction from their office after getting a detailed questionnaire. Lets wait for the answers (next year).

I am keeping my fingers crossed. My contention is that you make the top incumbent come clean on the prices which would help you to negotiate the prices with say Airtel. At least I would have a broad idea as to how the revenues are split, what are the issues that need to be sorted out and confront TRAI with the same to issue policy decisions (perhaps Department of Telecom too).

I think, all it needs is a simple will to do something instead of getting mired in the red tapism. I have already written to the DoT Secretary (R Chandrashekhar) but he has not replied so far. I am not even sure whether the email has landed in his inbox.

Some time later next year, if everything goes well, I might plan to meet him in person.

The idea is to get broadband liberated; so that at least I get the best value for my money. I’d rather have a functional DSL first for starters; fiber can wait for some time.

I was also surprised to see BSNL’s equivalent IPTV packages in their customer care. I am not sure how this would work out or what is the customer review. Although it is a good option for time shift TV but with bundled speeds of 256kbps, I am not eager to join them. With customer resolution at local BSNL exchange, I am not keen to run around to get my service fixed in case of any “issues”.

Lets keep our fingers crossed.

Tags: Airtel, API, Broadband, BSNL, BSNL Broadband, Department of Telecom, DoT, IPTV, Telecommunications India, TRAI

I have been having a very interesting exchange of ideas with Mathew Carley who is the owner of Hayai Broadband. He needs no introduction on the forums and I owe a lot of good deal to him. However, I must defend the user’s perspective and a blog post follows.

He writes:

1. FUP is not illegal, and there is nothing legally wrong with what any ISP is doing when it wants to keep it’s network under control – it is perhaps unethical to advertise a broadband plan as “unlimited” and apply an FUP. I prefer (and use) the term flat-rate, which refers to pricing, not usage.

TRAI, the regulator defines Broadband as “always on with a speed of 256kbps”. They have supported this definition that has been taken from ITU web site. The whole point here, from an end user’s perspective is that the definition has remained static. I think the FCC definition has also remained stuck here. However, the push for “faster speeds” has mainly come from academia and the realization among the telcos that serving content through their dumb pipes can be very lucrative, net neutrality be damned.

All the more they ALSO realize that it pays in the long run to get the customers hooked on to “speeds” AND “content” and then make money out of “traffic shaping” and the works.

Yet, if you look at the pdf from ITU (opens up a link in your pdf viewer), do check out the page 19 (under pricing) where it clearly states the success of South Korea broadband has been because of “flat rate”.

Here BSNL (others and your probably included) have different tiers with a “limit”. Now this limit can be argued. As I had mentioned that majority of your users would be content with social networking / email you would hardly see the “abuse” of network. However, BSNL is a public service. Which means that the network effectively belongs to public and for arguments sake has no say in the way it overlords it. Thats my opinion.

You would be owning the fiber and its for you to come out with what ever plan/ideas you wish to.

As far as TRAI is concerned, it does NOT mention the word “fair usage policy” which is again in contravention to license terms (as all the ISP’s are regulated by TRAI/DoT) and hence ILLEGAL. So you are right too except that it sugar coats the bitter pill.

2)

Many sites – even many India-centric sites, are hosted abroad. This is where the “strain on the networks” usually comes in.

Yes, I know it. Koreans have much of it hosted inside the country because they are not too comfortable with English. Duh. We are among the largest speaking country in the world by the way; still it is not a huge net market.

3) BSNL only has an International cable between India and Sri Lanka – it doesn’t have any going anywhere else. It buys almost all of it’s bandwidth from VSNL – 65% from VSNL/Tata India, 14% from GlobeInternet (a subsidiary of Tata in North America), with the rest from a small assortment of other ISPs both domestic and foreign through it’s various arrangements.

Thanks for letting me know this. I am waiting for official confirmation including the break up of prices.

4. We can safely assume that they’re anticipating about 300GB of usage on their FTTH plans, at Rs10/GB. Cheaper than what I can get it for, but they’ll already be getting the volume discounts I’m aiming for.

Network usage varies WILDLY. I cannot nail even an “AVERAGE USE” but well, it can possibly be predicted once the metrics are clear, the amount of traffic flowing in your fiber and the works.

7. If you’re an ADSL customer, 768kbit/s is pretty much all you’ll get out of a DSL line anyway, unless you’re really close to your DSLAM. ADSL2+ is meant to go up to 3.5mbit/s upload speed, but in NZ I’m 300m away from my cabinet on fairly decent quality lines, and I barely hit 900kbit/s. Since the default upload speed they provide I think is 256kbit/s and you purchase more upload in 256kbit/s increments, this probably is to cover their ass so as to prevent people from trying to buy 1 or 2mbit/s upload and then getting about 768k.

Thanks! The wording on the web site sounded as a “limit” without mentioning the technical reason. Let them confess in writing that it it still is ADSL and then I can question them as to why it is taking delay in introducing ADSL 2. I can file as many as RTI’s I want!

@operamaniac Right of way and civil works costs a fortune. I mean that quite literally – about 75-80% of our laying of fiber to homes goes towards these two things: the fiber and equipment to run the network are negligable costs by comparison, and since it can be crores per kilometer, it won’t take many kms of fiber for us to reach 1,000 crores.

The sad fact. It is the job of municipalities to lay down fat ducts throughout and just offer it to the end users. Simple. Far sightedness is not a virtue in this country. It comes at a premium from those who are NOT in this country.

Interestingly here’s something from Wikipedia entry for ‘Internet in Japan’. It says and I quote:

Operators struggle to maintain enough bandwidth to allow maximum usage of the service by customers. Even the largest operators have capacities in the region of tens of gigabits while customers with gigabit FTTH services (or higher) may number in the thousands. This problem is further compounded by limits caused by internal router bandwidth. Estimates of traffic based on data collected in May 2007 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications set total network usage at approximately 720 Gbit/s combined. The report further states that by May 2008, total traffic will exceed 1 Tbit/s.

Woooo. But then these are 2008-09 figures. Similarly the ITU report that I alluded above is 2003. Much has changed in past 7 years; we are still stuck in the kbps and well….. Time to change the tune, the gears and tracks.

@ Operamaniac a.k.a. my dear web master. 3G is not in my radar right now. In fact, I wanted to ask them as to how they have utilized the USO fund and what is the state of broadband connections in the rural areas. I know for sure that they are spending disproportionately on 3G services and neglecting the land line when it should be reverse. Lets see how they react. At least it would be a basis for seeking legal remedy or anyone who wants to file a Public Interest Litigation.

Cheers!!

Tags: 3G, API, Broadband, BSNL, DoT, DTH, FCC, India, Internet, ISP's, Net neutrality, Opera, S Band, Tata, Telecommunications India, TRAI, VSNL

During the past few months in setting up Hayai, it’s also been made terribly clear about one thing that could help the Broadband situation in India.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: NIXI either has to change, or it has to go.

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.

Now, one question. Why in the hell am I paying more per GB for DOMESTIC traffic than I am for INTERNATIONAL traffic? It’s pretty ridiculous, if you ask me (and if you’re reading this, you probably are).

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

In our quest to establish Hayai and to ensure that we can provide the fastest speeds and best pings in India, we’ve had many companies come forward and ask if they can put their equipment in our data centre (hosting companies and game server companies, mostly) but I figure: why should they have to put in OUR DC? Granted, it does give some competitive advantage, but, users on ISPs which don’t offer the speeds that we do shouldn’t have to suffer.

The solution? A new peering exchange.

We thought about doing it alone, but then I was alerted to the existence of another person who wants to do it, which is good, since the regulations probably prohibit me (personally) holding all but a limited role in such a project. So, if we/they can get it all set up, get past the various hurdles and get other ISPs to peer with them, then all going well, EXPIN should replace NIXI.

Below, I have posted emails between myself and the person attempting to set up this project. (IN REVERSE ORDER) – Please read and discuss back at broadbandforum.in

———————————————————————————————————-

On 6/10/2010 00:21, EXPIN wrote:
> Hey,
>
> Absolutely correct. The price structure is not a problem. We could even start offering free FE ports and charge for only GE and TE ports. Just to get more small ISPs and get up the traffic levels.
>
> All we need is a colocation space, Equipment (Cisco 6500 switch, I can arrange), a 24/7 monitoring system / NOC (which I can fix here in Sweden to begin with) and contact with few techs in Mumbai who can do the physical connection work (could be anyone with the knowledge of how to connect cables to a switch). In short, I can arrange everything…. just need someone (or a board) in front to tacle the legal issue.
>
> We would really need a plan here now =)
>
>
> /EXPIN
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: “Mathew Carley”
> To: “EXPIN”
> Cc: “HNS – Ripunjay”
> Sent: Tuesday, 5 October, 2010 1:03:13 PM
> Subject: Re: Expin IXP
>
> Hi,
>
> Part of the problem as I understand it is not necessarily government,
> it’s that it has to be able to monitor activities: unlike Sweden (well,
> Sweden doesn’t require it *as much* anyway). I’ve recently been dealing
> with peering in NZ and it’s fairly straightforward: NZ$1495 for a
> 1gbit/s port, no usage charges, buy another link if your usage
> constantly exceeds 75%.
>
> Unfortunately, the fact that peering has always been relatively
> cheap/straightforward has not contributed to cheaper broadband: in fact,
> over the years it has got steadily worse. When I left NZ 7 years ago, my
> domestic traffic was counted as 10% of my international traffic – in
> other words, if I used 10GB of domestic traffic, I would be charged for
> 1GB. The situation is now that domestic and international traffic is
> charged equally. This is largely due (unfortunately) to Telecom NZ
> pulling out of the major peering centres, rendering them more-or-less
> useless: out of the 1 million subscribers in NZ, 600k are Telecom, 250k
> are TelstraClear and 250k are shared between all other ISPs in the
> country – the number of ISPs which I estimate rivals India!
>
> Despite this, I think getting the smaller ISPs on-board in particular to
> allow relatively free traffic exchange would give some of those
> providers an advantage over the major players, most of whom have Fair
> Usage Policies (which, although a reasonable idea in principle, is not
> very consumer friendly in India). Frankly, if we can get past the legal
> hurdles, I don’t see why it shouldn’t work in India. We all know what
> the broadband situation is like – the major operators are running
> 100gbit/s international capacity for over 1 million IP addresses, yet
> NIXI is barely touching 15gbit/s. By contrast, FICIX is averaging
> 20gbit/s with far fewer broadband customers nationwide.
>
> I would be very interested in participating in an organization, and as I
> outlined in my previous mail, the price ranges offered here in NZ would
> be a reasonable starting point: 10mbit/s is $295 (~INR10k), 100mbit/s is
> $695 (~INR23k) and 1000mbit/s is $1495 (~INR50k). Of course, since the
> idea is to revolutionize, we could go all out and have 100mbit/s at
> INR10k, 1000mbit/s at INR25k and 10GigE at Rs100k – with the policy of
> not routing traffic through other ISPs international links.
>
> This could create a similar situation to that which is in the Ukraine:
> for something like US$6 a month I was able to purchase 1mbit/s unlimited
> (upgradeable) – which included 100mbit/s unlimited traffic within the
> Ukraine itself. For Ukrainian hosted content and mirrors, this meant a
> fairly awesome experience – but the idea here would be similar, and
> hopefully would encourage much more content to be hosted in India itself
> (instead of the USA) and even more services to be developed – being that
> you’re in Sweden, I’m sure you know what I mean, and as I had suggested
> in my previous email, I think that the costs involved in running a
> mirror like Sourceforge (requires 150mbit/s dedicated) is probably why
> India doesn’t have one. The situation is surely the same for many other
> organizations as you have also mentioned.
>
> As for how to proceed? Well what do you need? Off the top of my head, a
> NOC, funding or a sponsor (I guess?), *probably* a license (and we need
> to ensure that we remain on the right side of the laws and regulations -
> this is probably where it’s all getting stuck), equipment (I’m sure you
> know what you want to run already) and some people (most of who, if I
> understand correctly, MUST be Indian citizens/residents).
>
> Ripunjay has more experience in the industry than I personally do, I’m
> fairly confident he can give us an idea of what else would be needed to
> get such a project underway.
>
> Ripunjay: welcome your thoughts?
>
> -Mathew
>
>
>
> On 5/10/2010 22:40, EXPIN wrote:
>> Mathew,
>>
>> Everyone I met in India regarding the IXP project didn’t understand what it was. It took me hours to explain them only. The only person who understood this was the CEO of NIXI himself. The situation is indeed monopolistic as far as i understood. I guess the government does want full control over the internal traffic in India. One reason why the peering policy at NIXI is multilateral.
>>
>> I think your idea of getting more ISP directors in the board is good! That will put some muscles in the project at least if nothing else.
>>
>> We in Sweden are running a free IX platform (www.sthix.net) for operators. Works pretty well where all operators are helping with the equipment, colocation and so on. But that might not really work in India.
>>
>> The best would be to create an organisation of few Directors, Get the permission to setup the exchange and charge a very small fixed amount every month or anually for respective ports (FE, GE, TE). Have the possibility of both multilateral and bilateral peering arrangements, IPv6, multicast, etc. Even voice exchange in future (VOIP).
>>
>> I had a chat with some of the global networks who have their equipment in TATA facilities in Mumbai. Some of them are Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Akamai (Facebook) and many more who were very interested in peering! That way the local ISPs in India could peer away a lot of global traffic and reduce transit costs as NIXI does not allow non-licensees to connect and peer.
>>
>> This is also a very good opportunity to show this IX as a global IX and one of the biggest IX in Asia on the world map. A nice and clean way to reduce your bandwidth costs upto 60-70%. But it is pity that nobody understands the idea of it and what it could really result in =/ A total WIN-WIN solution for everbody from consumer to operator.
>>
>> The question is really how we proceed? =/
>> Because my arms are getting tired trying to reach the government for the permission.
>>
>>
>> /EXPIN
>>
>> —– Original Message —–
>> From: “Mathew Carley”
>> To: “EXPIN”
>> Cc: “HNS – Ripunjay”
>> Sent: Tuesday, 5 October, 2010 4:15:49 AM
>> Subject: Re: Expin IXP
>>
>> Mr Walia,
>>
>> Interestingly, I moved to India from Finland. I’m Kiwi by origin.
>>
>> I’m aware of some of the governmental limitations – I tend to get pretty stroppy with the government at least once a day.
>>
>> Someone at Tata or DoT is probably misunderstanding your intentions, but as I understand from the ISP license, licensed ISPs are allowed to privately peer relatively freely (maybe starting this thing is as “simple” as obtaining an ISP license from the DoT). The problem seems to be just that many ISPs don’t peer properly: ISPs that buy from Tata/VSNL peer with Tata and Tata resellers, ISPs that buy from Reliance/FLAG peer with Reliance and so on ad infinitum. It seems pretty stupid to me that the CEO of a non-profit non-governmental organization would be given the power to approve (or not) the opening of another IX – that would present a monopolistic situation.
>>
>> However, perhaps myself and Ripunjay might be able to help in some way – the main thing is getting ISPs on board. Being that Hayai is starting in Mumbai, we were planning to go to existing ISPs in Mumbai (Hayai, HNS, Fivenet, Nivyah, MTNL, Vashi Cable, TTML and various others: in fact, why couldn’t we approach each NIXI ISP member with this?) to offer them peering at next-to-nothing: 1 gbit/s port at maybe 1 lakh per month flat-rate or something to that effect, with similar policies to FICIX ( http://www.ficix.fi/english/newmember.php ) – in particular, paying attention to point #3.
>>
>> Considering that NIXI charges 3 lakhs a year plus Rs25 per GB (average price comes to ~ Rs17 per GB once you take in to account a 3:1 in/out ratio), but at 80% utilization this is still some 44 lakhs per month, however, despite this, knowing something about Indian mentality is that they will see 3 lakhs per year against 12 lakhs per year and choose the former. Ironically NIXI’s about page says “thereby resulting in better quality of service (reduced latency) and reduced bandwidth charges for ISPs by saving on International Bandwidth” – considering it’s almost the most expensive bandwidth in India, how can they possibly claim this?
>>
>> Due to this, this operation might even have to be done for nearly free if the ISPs were willing to supply equipment and pay an equal share for the premises, but this is a detail that would have to be worked out (in fact, I think MTNL and Railtel both have space in their respective facilities in Mumbai that might be ideally suited for the purpose).
>>
>> As well as simple peering in that IX, hosting mirrors of sites such as Sourceforge and housing Akamai boxes. If HNS got involved, they might consider moving speedtest.net and their Ubuntu mirrors too, who knows (not up to me, just planting seeds).
>>
>> If the legal hurdles can be overcome, there are some very significant possibilities that could arise from an IX with a more friendly tariff structure: who knows, perhaps NIXI and/or ISPs charging each other more than international rates would even see the error of their ways!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Mathew Carley
>> Director, Hayai Pvt Ltd.
>>

>>
>>
>> On 5/10/2010 08:02, EXPIN wrote:
>>
>> Hi Mathew,
>>
>> We are a bunch of scandinavian techs (indian origin) who wanted to setup an exchange in India due to NIXIs current structure (not helping at all).
>>
>> Problem we are facing is with the government. There is no proper law regarding the exchange point. And TATA (who were suppose to be our partner in this) is not allowing us to start this exchange without the permission from Department of Telecommunications.
>>
>> I’ve been to India twice now and also had meeting directly with the Minister of ITs secratary who forwarded me to the CEO of NIXI. I had meeting with him and the tech taking care of the NIXI platform. Seems that it is CEO of NIXI who can permit opening of another exchange in India.
>>
>> I’ve emailed them our proposal and all, but no answer from them in 6months now. I guess we do not know how to deal with the beaurocrats
>>
>> We might help each other open this project, but this requires a great contact circle in the government.
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>> EXPIN
>>
>>
>> —– Original Message —–
>> From: “Mathew Carley”
>> To: “EXPIN”
>> Sent: Monday, 4 October, 2010 11:00:41 AM
>> Subject: Expin IXP
>>
>> To whom it may concern,
>>
>> Your contact details were given to me by Ripunjay from HNS with regards to setting up an IXP.
>>
>> I’m highly dissatisfied with NIXI and it’s tariff structure, which to me, does not make any sense and does not contribute well towards reducing the costs of domestic bandwidth or efficiency of routing as an IXP is supposed to do.
>>
>> As it is the aim of Hayai to be India’s fastest ISP, we too were considering the possibility of setting up our own exchange, basing our structure loosely on FICIX ( www.ficix.fi ), but once I found out about your project, I thought there might be some potential for us to work with your organization.
>>
>> Are you able to tell me more about Expin, details, tariffs, if you currently have any active peers, etc?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Mathew Carley
>> Director, Hayai Pvt Ltd.
>>

Tags: Broadband, CEO, Department of Telecom, DoT, DTH, EDGE, Google, India, Microsoft, MTNL, Non-governmental organization, Opera, Reliance, Tata, Telecommunications India, TRAI, VSNL, Yahoo