A little while back, Rajesh Jain had run a “Big Idea for India” contest. He has touched on many issues in his previous posts; there was a lack of serious debate on Broadband. This contest was open to all; I had mailed my entry to Rajesh on his email.
He had received over 150 responses for the same.

Jain announced the winners recently; in which yours truly has also figured (the names are in an random order). The contest was judged by Jain and Atanu Dey (whose blog is linked to in the blog roll in side bar). Of course, he has been a huge influence in shaping up my thought process and I owe a lot to him.

The post, in it’s entirety follows here. For the regular readers, there is nothing new because I have already touched on these issues in the previous posts extensively.

This is one answer and highly underrated option. The following scenario is envisaged:

1) Optic fibres running across to get the data without caps. We need fibre to home instead of outdated copper. Last mile access is contentious; while opening up last mile for private players is contentious, this needs to be debated. Britain has opened it up under strict regulations and British Telecom has been forced to upgrade it’s infrastructure to retain customers.

2) Heavy public investment for scalable architechture. Not 3G guzzling up spectrum but community Wifi’s (pay per use or perhap involving the municipalities making the people accountable directly for the level of involvement).

3) Create an ecosystem of open source applications to harness ideas; make it easier for people to access services. (Open Source standards promote interoperability; closed source is meant for perpetual profiteering at public’s expense).

4) Opening up the Government’s accumulated data through API’s etc; create models around it. For e.g., data from GPS installed in public transport would easily display the estimated arrival time through SMS if needed on the mobile phones. (“Hacker culture” is missing in India; most of the Bangalore flotsam is moronic army of debuggers and script kiddies).

5) Teleconferencing would make it easier for people to people contacts; Gujarat has shown the way! Why can’t India have something similar to Skype? (There is a move to have something similar in the GNU world where encryption would be based on open standards).

6) Education sector would get a boost; not only invite faculty, stream educational videos, hold tele-sessions but teach kids for a wonderful world of Internet. (Pilot experiments in Bihar/Gujarat have been well received; the idea needs scaling up).

7) Spin off benefits from e-commerce applications.

The potential is huge; if you are planning it to share with BJP, the easiest way out is to break the ISP‘s monopoly, hold TRAI responsible for execution (not DoT) and revise Broadband definition to at least 2 Mbps (UNLIMITED, WITHOUT any caps).

Thanks Rajesh!

Tags: 1Mbps, 3G, 512k delights!, Access Deficit Charge, API, Assholes, Broadband, Broadband access, Broadband in India, Broadband India, Broadband pricing, Broadband SUCKS, Broadband Updates, BSNL Broadband, BSNL India, BSNL sucks, DoT, DTH, EDGE, fraud, Fraudband, gas belching old haggards, India, Indian Telecom sucks, Indians, Internet, ISP's, mainstream media, Mobile, mobile phones, Ofcom, Open Government, Open Source, open source applications, Opera, SMS, Social Issues, Spectrum, Telecommunications India, Telecommunications India, TRAI, Unlimited pricing, Wifi, Wireless, Wirless broadband

I was lucky to have the plan migrated over the weekend. Is it really earth shattering; much like the “big O”? No isn’t. But definitely a lot faster than what I was forced to put up with. I have noticed a weird thing. They have not touched the uploads speeds at all. I am getting slower uploads but faster downloads. This makes it useless for torrents; I believe. Still, something is better than nothing!

Live streaming has become a lot more smoother and has given me a lot more options to switch between channels. I don’t own a TV but with increasing online presence of the TV majors, I’d be soon watching the “saas bahu” serials online. No, I am not kidding. They are a total timepass!

Update: For the first time ever, I have been able to watch You tube videos uninterruptedly. I have been watching IBN Live video streams; as good as the broadcast quality on my laptop! The wonders of technology and the indeed the sense of awe. But wait a sec. Did someone say that in Japan they are bored of 100 mbps speeds? We are in a bullock cart stage as far as technology is concerned.

Tags: 512k delights!, Airtel, Airtel Broadband, Broadband, Fraudband, laptop, Telecommunications India, Torrents

It’s confrmed that Airtel is offering a “top up” plan of 512kbps for about 300 bucks. Indeed, a good news. Finally, I have something to cheer for myself because I have “graduated” from the 256k to some “faster” speeds. Here is the link to the current speeds.

Tags: Airtel, Airtel Broadband, Broadband, Broadband pricing, Broadband SUCKS, Fraudband, Telecommunications India