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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 We need fibre to home instead of outdated copper.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!

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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.

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The final nominees for this years most coveted awards are as follows:
1) Department of Telecom. Ubdoubetdly, my favourites. They have bungled time and again by delaying the policies and failing to have a clear head on one of the most vital resources of the nation. Being headed by an utter moron has not helped the matters. When the going went tough for the previous incumbent, the manmoron of a PM added another dumb joker who has no clue as to why he came out dripping from “that place” soaked in birth juices. I am sure that “intelligence quotient” would be an alien term to the elected representatives for sure.

2) Airtel and Mittal. Having turned his baby venture in to a mega corporate giant, Airtel has been nominated for trying to fool the nation for paying off the spectrum dues. One of the loudest opponents of mobile spectrum auction, they are eating their own refuse and paying up for spectrum calculated on 2001 prices! Whoever would have imagined their stupidities compounded by arrogance! They truly deserve the asshole of the year unless a worthy competitor crops up.

3) Broadband companies led by BSNL. My favourite whipping boy. Ever eager to bare it’s little buttocks, they always ask to be slammed/whipped on their bare asses. The leader of the pack of these idiots is Airtel Broadband who deserves egg on their faces for introducing the ‘fastest’ broadband with a pathetic limit that you would not even piss on it. They feel that the users are dead wimps and nuts who would eat out of their hands for whatever they offer.

4) Tata Communications! Nothing to beat them. They were highlighted in the mainstream press by a lobotomised media house. VSNL Broadband has been labelled as “fraudband” by the intellectual users of this nation and rightly so. Being stung by the negative publicity online on the blogs (yours truly leads the pack to aim his barbs at them) and the mainstream press, they changed their name to Tata Comminucation. WOW. This is the first instance of a company changing it’s name to “reflect on the changing role of a telecom company in 21st century”! Add to this a story of a harrassed customer who weeps like an insufferable widow, moaning and groaning instead of filing a legal suit. Assholes springing up more assholes?

5) My final nominee is YOU, the customer. For staring on instead of doing something. For bleating on the forums without moving your butt to act. Shrugging your shoulders and knowing fully well that this system is your elect without making any effort to improve on the system collectively. For keeping an ostrich like attitude and cheering this process on. For all this you deserve a cold meaningless death. And a horrible death with your fingers, toes, brains, entrails and genitals being devoured by hungry pigs. You ought to be repeatedly struck by lightning for you deserve no mercy. (This is a repeat of the 2006 award but then I am running out of serious ideas!)

By common consensus, I am happy to vote for Tata Communications for Asshole of the year 2007! Tra la la la. They richly deserve this for being in the “communications” business in the first place.

Till next year!

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Airtel is screwing up majorly. They have failed to lauch their promised services and are no where closer to the “revolution”. They do have some plans tailored for the masses; in my opinion, they donot believe in one size fits all approach. These permutations and combinations including the jugglery of the plans only serves to confuse the public; majority of them who would not be able to tell as to why the lights blink on the modem. Internet connectivity is “fast” only if the pages load up “fast”.

Airtel has it’s intentions right when it wants to gear up to “serve it’s esteemed” customers. They screw up on the same because there seems to be no accountability. They have a lousy web site which seems to be “confused” and groping for direction and searching for information means a lot of click throughs.

Why on earth they spend money only to make it useless. A heavy use of flash or corporate goodiness serves no purpose except to irritate the visitiors. Though, I wonder, as to how many realise the fundamental value of clear lines of communication to advertise?

Speaking of “fraudband”, I believe that we are getting sick and tired of the ham handed approach towards access. The snail pace would leave us far behind in the knowledge industry. There are no alarm bells ringing though.

We can just sit back and hope.

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