At best, the draft proposals sound what has been proposed; but the industry and their associations would definitely seek to water it down.  Any customer “friendly” variant is not welcome for obvious reasons. In any case, the draft policy (specifically on broadband) needs specific inputs rather than broad sweeping generalizations that cannot be fulfilled in the current scenario. The Government of India also needs to do away with self styled experts and focus on basics to understand the need to encourage the adoption of broadband.

Let me be honest. I haven’t read the draft proposal in it’s entirety. So I would prefer to link it to someone who has done it. As luck would have it, I stumbled again on Medianama  with their take on the proposed policy changes. I would only highlight the issues that I feel need to be addressed regarding broadband alone.

1) Definition of Broadband : Always on with a minimum speed of 2 Mbps and not as proposed  to be changed in the year 2015. This is because with the change at the centre, the policy decisions invariably get stuck in the red tape. The whole bunch of users have been clamoring for 2 Mbps as the basic benchmark in order to utilize the actual benefit of the broadband.

Why? Because 256 kbps is pathetic. You cannot video chat effectively. You cannot stream media applications. You cannot do zilch. Still, the definition remains stuck at mere “doubling” of the speed. 100 Mbps is a promised pipe dream.

2) There have been effective proposals for setting up interlink peer exchanges in India to replace NIXI. An excellent blog post (not written by me but Mathew), clearly details the methodology to achieve this.  The highlights (sic):

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.

3) The proposed opening up of the last mile access by wireless is a useless idea. Wireless or any of it’s iterations cannot, I repeat cannot be relied on for data intensive applications. There is no draft proposal for public access of Wifi’s bankrolled by the municipal corporations. Wifi’s can be used for another lofty purpose. To route the mobile network calls in hard to reach areas. Another brilliant stroke would be to encourage the uptake of the VoIP.

4) Even if you have 100 Mbps rolling in a shiny FTTH all the way up to your home, the lack of “real application” is a dampener. What would the mass of humanity rolling in this country use 100 Mbps for? Facebook? There is no concept proposal for encouraging the uptake of the broadband applications, for fostering a community of developers, lack of clear focus on the e-commerce, overt valuations of the existing firms and the works.  Granted that this is chicken and egg situation,  100 Mbps broadband networks are mere pipe dreams till the time there is focus on backing up a reliable infrastructure and true “unlimited access”.

5) Unbundling of the last mile access: The PSU’s are like wives. You can’t live with them. You can’t kill them. Simple. However, it does not mean that the last mile should be unbundled without having a proper oversight of the sector. I had believed earlier that proper competition on the same copper would effectively bring down the prices. However, this is fraught with it’s own hassles. The copper is pubic property and I am sure that anyone investing money would extract his own pound of flesh in terms of ownership of the cable. (This one is a retort to Medianama).

This should not be encouraged. Instead, the companies need to be given incentives to invest in the cable, peer through a separate exchange, a unified license to allow them VoIP applications, create infrastructure for niche products. For example, there could be an ISP specifically for gaming. Let it have the best response times in terms of ping. A separate company for IPTV applications. A different company for say, tele-medicine solutions with end to end infrastructure. Back it up with rural broadband initiatives and then you have customized solutions for different segments.

Let these marginal players slug it out with the established partners. Let them expand the pie. Mobile telephony did not happen overnight but by relentless onslaught of the advertisements to create a need for the product. I am not a big fan of the mobile applications, but that does not bias my outlook for the explosive growth, even though the numbers are disputed crap.

Broadband is a niche application. The draft proposals are mere eye wash and they need to be understood in their context before we bleat and crow about being a fucked up IT “superpower”.

What I agree with Medianama is the crap “fair usage policies”. But I have already stressed on the “unlimited” access. This is hardly going to be achieved and despite claims by fucktards of downloading 100, 500 or even 1000 GB is hogwash. As far as the net neutrality goes, the “faster access” to certain businesses is a huge controversial issue. The ping times in this country are so awful that is hardly going to matter.

Hence, all the more the sarkari buffons need to be given a pat on their asses for making some effort to think over the issues. With all due respect, I am also uploading the critique to their proposals. I am not sure who is going to read them, but for sure, this is better than just sucking up and doing nothing.

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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.

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Google is the top referrer here to this blog. People land up here looking for (sic):

calcutta telephones broadband change of
mtnl broadband appellate authority
tata photon plus blog
sujit sahoo hal
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iptv two way interaction
anil ambani email id
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who are using tatabroadband in hyderabad

This one obviously takes the cake:

an ideal customer care executive

And this one too:

mgcarley is not an indian

Hodi Baba!!! Indians! WTF!

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Convergence isn’t happening either.IPTV was supposed to ‘revolutionize’ the viewing habits and patterns. Besides a handful of early stage adopters, there hasn’t been much of a headway in that. The early adopters are cribbing about high cost of access, the limited viewing choice and the so called “fair usage policies”.

We are slowly moving towards an inertia in reforms because till the time the commitment comes from the top, things are not going to change. The most lucrative segment of telecom industry is the scarce spectrum because it allows the people in charge to play God and bend rules to their whims and fancies.

So far, there has been no clear cut guidelines regarding the spectrum allocation nor the way 3G is to be rolled out. Underhand dealings have created havoc with the way we use our services; dealing with the established oligopolies.

I am cynical about the way things have taken a turn and with the allocation of telecom portfolio to the same minister, the outlook seems worse for being stuck in the narrow band policy for times to come.

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You can follow the news as it happens on the forums or their official website which on expected lines is full of coding errors. I understand that they have invested a lot in the unified billing. I see no sight of the expected IPTV launch.

Its one thing to have the “stars coming home”- who happen to be beautiful people with some talent to be able to market themselves effectively. Apart from that, I see no real merit in having “brand ambassadors” in a crowded segment with the competitors burning equal amount of money to get a pie in your living room.

Sadly, the DTH has not matured enough here in India. Cant we get premium adult channels on the existing networks? Or there is too much of “content regulation”. We are a nation of billion people, but mention the word “sex” and there is a “smell of controversy”.

TRAI needs to learn its lessons fast.

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Meanwhile, a lot has changed over the personal front too. I am engaged and looking forward to get married soon. This blog has been a constant companion over the past few years and given me a platform to vent out my ideas. I hope to nurture it; a challange to remain and stay focussed on shifts instead of reporting teeny weeny incident. Ultimately, it’s about you and me as the customer which matters the most. And we are on the recieving end. For all practical purposes.

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Here in the grand strategy of Anil Ambani unfolds. He got the ad labs, poured in money in content creation and would make a huge moolah out of “exclusive” deals with media players. The value added services is a growing market and there is a HUGE space for exclusive content; I was surprised to know that there is a seperate channel for gardening; Tata has one for home tuitions. Although, it cannot replace the classrooms but then parents are keen for any degree of experimentation.

Coming back to IPTV. Does anyone of you readers think that this could make any degree of impact on the viewership? I feel that most of the people mistrust the landline outages (which are so frequent) unless there is a fibre to home coming to their homes with simple instructions to operate the set top box. The present hardware is designed to confuse the first time users; somewhere it ought to ring the bell to make it as simple as possible.

I would reserve my comments on the two competing platforms till the market matures up. Reliance is lying down low with it’s broadband offering. I am still wondering as to what has been the issue at their end. Why are they delaying the commercial launch? There are any number of ideas floating around and if they claim to be India’s number one network as far as the coverage is concerned, they ought to focus on their cherries. Or else, it would die a virgin.

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For 300 bucks more than the basic price for unlimited broadband, I am getting double the speed. I have had no issues with the service as a whole and I am extremely pleased about it. Specially, when I get to read what others are going through.

Interestingly, Reliance has had a soft launch in NCR and they are slowly expanding. It would not be wrong to say that Reliance would look at this extremely lucrative segment; but they would have to spend bucketloads of cash to create a demand for their broadband services. Unless, they strike where Sify or Iquara or Hathway have spread their misery far and wide. They would find droves of eager customers flock for their services. I still hold that the broadband plans have to be compelling enough for people to make the switch.

Airtel’s MBA’s need to tighten up their belts. For all their fancy cars and pay hikes (no, I am not jealous) they come out frothing idiots who would not be able to hold up a bulb to a five year old kid. Their collective IQ amounts to zilch.

Prove me wrong morons. 2Mbps unlimited for 1000 bucks? It’s worth it. I ensure that the entire broadband user forums would be singing paens about you and I promise never to trash you or your collective IQ. Mark my “dangerous” words. The truth is out there. Reliance would surely eat up your share and I am sure most of you would desert Airtel’s sinking ship like rotten rats at the first hint of danger.

Update: This was a “top up” offer where the speeds would be doubled in the night. Bah! This is called as being taken for a “ride”! Sheesh. By the way, I called up the Airtel Customer Care Centre and had to bang my head with dead beat assinine women. They had no clue about the “top up” and it took a lot of cajoling and shouting on the phone to make them see any reason.

I dread calling up the customer care centres; unless one wants to let off his/her steam on the phone or act funny with the “dames”.

Useless offer- Airtel sucks!

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Trust the morons to loose an initiative. I wonder as to how do they find enough money to feed an army of MBA’s who sit back and deliberate about doing nothing. (P.S. I don’t like the MBA’s a wee bit). In the past 6 months, ever since I have had Airtel Broadband, there has been a downtime just once. However, others would testify the slackening quality of access elsewhere; Airtel needs to tone up in other parts of NCR.

All said and done, Airtel seriously needs to “take the initiative” and upset other player’s calculation. We would, forever, suffer speeds of “upto” 256k without any appreciable benefit. TRAI is sleeping over the customer complaints and instead of taking any concrete action, prefers to sniff out the babus’ puckered holes. Not a charming thought at any cost, indeed.

If anyone from Airtel is smart enough to read and understand whatever I have written here, take some efforts to have simplified plans and get your IPTV rolling out. It’s high time to wrest the initiative because if Reliance comes calling (as and when they realise that there is a huge stake out in landline business), you guys would be quaking and shitting in your pants. Reliance has already held Airtel’s testicles and turned them blue strangulating them. It would their landline business next. And I dont get my predictions wrong at all.

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It all boils down to the various options that we get to exercise when we have the choice and the bandwidth. If you feel you have a “fast” 256kbps “broadband” wait till you get a 8Mbps thingy. It would surely blow off your pants (in terms of user experience that is). Yet, we as Indians would rather perish than stick out our necks and fight for the issue.

My sources deep inside the Airtel complex are not opening up their mouths as yet. There were various conspiracy theories doing the rounds. Some felt that it was the imminent launch of Airtel’s IPTV launch and this was to test the “load on the lines”- whatever that means. For me, it was a good day; better than the dreary existence otherwise.

I hope that we get to see affordable 2 Mbps soon. Here’s hoping. I’d have something less to bitch about then!

By the way, Airtel is the best ISP I have ever used. In terms of service, they are way ahead of the other ISP’s. I have never faced a downtime (by HIS grace) and the “customer care executives” (or whatever you wish to call those poor blighters) are a shade better than the other counterparts. This is not a blanket endorsement of the morons who are sitting over a goldmine without capitalising on their investment. Still, to their credit, I am sure they would be rolling out something better in the future. I have a testimonial of a customer who’s Airtel landline got installed in 24 hours flat! A working connection in 24 hours! Mine took 72 hours and that too after much threats and cajoling the morons in the fray to get my net working.

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TRAI has called for universal implementation of IPTV by the cable service providers. This means that cable companies would provide a direct competition to the telecom companies as far as voice services are concerned. If they are carrying the net to the customer premises, there is no way anyone could stop ultracheap VoIP calls and ineffect telephony service in the guise of IPTV. Plus, they could easily hire oodles of bandwidth from guys like Power Grid Corporation or the Railways and carry them to the end customer premises.

This means that telcos should shit in their pants because all there massive investments would not attract customers at all. I have argued that customers are actually loath to change their landlines and this provides a great oppurtunity to lock in brand new customers with all the lollies. Wireless is good in theory but then wireline can provide a better bandwidth.

Yet, the dickheads are sleeping soundly without realising the potential for the market with their ostrich like attitude. This is specially true for start up companies like Airtel who are clear laggards in the broadband space. BSNL is silently coursing ahead with about a million subscribers. If they play their cards sensibly, I am sure they have a winner at their hands. Unless of course, babus sitting there sell their soul to the devil.

It is this proactive attitude of TRAI that has found much appreciation here. Something surely has happened to TRAI and I have no clue as to how it has found it’s teeth. I am waiting for their salvos on broadband and many companies get going by selling their narrowband as speeds “upto 256 kbbps”. Of course, this is illegal and TRAI needs a kick in the bollocks to wake itself up. Earlier on they mandated a Do Not Disturb list to be maintained which clearly means that our numbers and private details were being sold to the tele marketeers. Not surprisingly, media has chosen not to anger it’s major advertiser and instead chose to keep mum about the whole issue.

Airtel is clearly a laggard and so is Reliance. Whither the oppurtunity of 100 mbps plans? Agreed, it was all hogwash by elder Ambani but the younger sibling is burning his cash on trying to size up the media. Telecom needs his attention and he ought to cough up cash in the wireline space to make himself relevant. Having a website dedicated in your own name is just to score a point over those who don’t have.

Is TRAI reading this blog? Then wake up and do something!

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I was expecting and it happened. The COAI chief reacted on expected lines and cried foul. Reliance is waiting in the wings to get the GSM licence for pan India licence and is willing to fork out astronomical sums of money for the same. Real estate developer Parsavnath has thrown it’s hat in the ring.

All for a simple logic. The “relaxed” norms for the foreign ownership is bound to attract the global majors. We have already seen Vodafone owning up the Hutch brand. It makes sense to scale up a brand new service, share towers with the existing incumbents and then sell out at a profit. What else explains this? It isn’t the crap aboout the “fastest” growing market but for the existing segmentation of the customer base. It becomes easier to identify a set customer base and lure them with a better service offering than their existing service provider. All the while it’s the incumbent that spends huge amount of adver tising to get them on the network, the new players lure them with “better offers”. More so, I feel that it might be as well that Indian market may get to see the segregation of the services. For example, we might have new players exclusively for data services rather than plain vanilla voice applications.

It is now being whispered in the Indian media about the inflated subscribers; a fact that I have been talking about ever since this blog came into existence.

It’s more than 3 quarters of the year now. No new initiative on the broadband front except for the customary noises about IPTV. Bah. What do customers really need?

So far, Raja (our “hon’ble” minister) has not been able to exert himself. He remains a pale shadow of former M(o)ara(o)n. If the Indian Government falls to the blackmail of the screwed up commies, expect our broadband dreams to be rolled back by another decade. Most of the operators would hold it because they would be more interested in knowing the exact “policy” of the new guy who warms his ass on the chair.

Madness indeed.

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Anil Ambani must be eating out of his hands. He is spreading himself thin with annoucement of massive power projects and his arguments with his elder sibling Mukesh who is rolling out a retail juggernaut. If the media reports are to be believed, Mukesh is far more capable of rolling out massive projects than Anil; however, I don’t trust these reports anyway.

Anil is still claiming that the next generation IPTV delivered over Gbps speeds would forever change the TV viewing habits of the populace. I have reason to be circumspect. With suboptimal branding of his existing Broadband lines and marketing 150kbps as “broadband”, his claims fall flat on it’s face. I still have to see anything substantial in their offerings either in their fixed line or mobiles.

Hence all these claims need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Since there is no independent verification of the same, I’d rather rely on the ground action than delusions of grandeur.

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It all boils down to the content. The future lord over the masses is the one who could make sure that they control the keys to entertainment streaming in your drawing rooms. Presently, the choice remains limited to Direct to Home television (DTH), Cable TV and now IPTV. Cable TV is ham handed in it’s approach. With massive under declaration of viewers, the TV channels are hard hit for the “genuine” revenues. DTH is too restrictive in it’s clauses and hasn’t really set in the cash registers ringing. The majors are slowly realising the fact that it would need major investments and years before they can break even. However, I see no such sign of the same.

The present “gold rush” to control the media by whatever means is the key to the future power leverages. Media has the potential to shape up the public opinion and slowly the proliferation of the news channels/ magazines et al is a clear pointer to the fact. However, the lords of the whole game are the content delivery systems who are in a position to dictate the terms to the media moghuls. It would take huge investments to upgrade the cable wires; DTH by itself isn’t really exciting with content restrictions. IPTV may yet be the dark horse that has the potential to change the rules of the game.

In all this brouhaha, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has not been able to exert itself, as usual. It has been issuing statements off and on without realising as to what has hit it between the legs . It is caught unawares like a deer-in-the-headlights.

The ultimate killer would be a TiVo like thingy which comes with a personal Digital Video Recorder. In my opinion, it would be a boon to the consumers who are pestered by the advertisements even in the pay channels (which is totally unfair). The whole media is not yet geared towards treating customer like a king (which is anti-thesis to the so called management principles). We are slowly moving towards the consolidation of the services because players with deep pockets are the only ones that can survive the bloodbath.

While BSNL may have the theoretical first mover advantage, Airtel and Reliance have the potential to upset it’s apple cart.They would be sitting back to see what all potential pitfalls are there and would perhaps piggy back BSNL’s efforts to “educate” consumers about IPTV. If Airtel can crow about the “service gurantees”, I am sure that they can notch up some customers of their own. Yet, the age of the entertainment junkies seems to be clearly on it’s way out- IPTV has to look simple and less confusing about setting up the whole assembly. With it’s army of poorly trained JTO’s and it’s ill informed “call centre”, it is potential recipe for disaster. Reliance too has been making the right noises earlier on but with the present moribund marketing efforts, it is being left out of contention.

What possibly it can portend for the future? IPTV needs a critical mass before it can actually suceed. This means substantial investments and the need to tie up with the content service providers. This bodes well for the fat cats and media moghuls who can monetise their content to the highest bidder and sell most of it as “value added service”.

In my opinion, the real choice for the customer is to set up a community network so that content can be cached and streamed from a local server instead of attending to every request individually. This is a far fetched dream though. Yet, if this idea succeeds, we might just see the entry of nifty gadgets like Apple’s iTv which would double up as a personal TV recorder, a mini computer and it’s ability to connect to the net and download your choice of programmes (which incidentally would serve the multitude of masses anyway). Think about the possibilities. BSNL might just introduce a premium “talk channel” where it’s IPTV users might just interact with “aunties” of all hues over the phone to keep themselves hooked over the “premium sex chat lines”. It could make a killing out of it!

This idea incidentally is far fetched and I am sure that some prude would file a case against them for obscenity. Even though, ours is a nation of f***ers with the swelling billion plus people here.

IPTV does open up a large number of possibilties indeed. It remains to be seen as to how it would play out in the real world.

(Crossposted on Desicritics)

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With the institutionalised corruption firmly in place, Reliance was able to throw in money and automatically have all the doors opened for itself. The top “honchos” drive their interaction based on loads of PR crap and “behind the scenes” activities to give shape to their bulging coffers. Investor driven companies like Reliance has been quick to spot oppurtunities where none have existed earlier on.

The post was motivated when I watch the movie “Guru” starring juniour Bachchan and his muse (current fiance) in a total waste of a role. Bachchan, of course, tries to set up a larger than life role falling flat on his face and is an apology of an actor. However, purpose of the post is not to pan the movie here. The imediate provocation was the three series article that appeared on Rediff where Mukesh Ambani talks of his “father’s dreams”.

Reliance’s venture in Telecom was audacious. With a rumoured investment of 25,000 crores it was unparalleled simply for the scope for it’s plans and promises. We were “promised” Mbps speeds, free outgoing calls, “death of distance”. Arguably, they did shake up the industry and even forced the goliath of BSNL to move it’s lazy butt and reduce the call distances. For the first time in Independence, we were actually “experiencing” the “fruits” of free market economy.

However, the honeymoon lasted briefly. With the passing away of the patriarch, the sons squabbled like any “galli-mohalla”fights and the whole boo boo was the subject of national past time. Of course, the only interest was the huge amount of money at stakes here. Couple of billion dollars here and there. Rolls Royces, private jets, extensive land holdings and money beyond your wildest dreams.

Here is something that Mukesh himself had to say about it all in the second series of the article write ups:

We got into telecom in the ’90s by bidding for cellular licences. But I felt that the real value is in the convergence of information and communication; pure communication will not deliver a sustainable value; that is why we called ourselves infocomm. It was learning a whole new domain. We brought in experts from the outside but we essentially did it with proven Reliance people.

It is all very obvious down the line. The billing cycles were screwed up. People were cheated. Opaque schemes were floated. Reliance got in the mobile business by circumventing every possible rule in the book. Licence norms were actually changed for them. Their broadband venture has failed. Their customised portals (in Reliance Web World) remain under utilised by over estimating the pent up latent demand for connectivity. If I am not mistaken, it is bleeding cash with no where to go.

Anil Ambani seems to have divided his attention towards politics and entertainment business. He is looking for the scale up of his telecom business and get into IPTV by signing up a deal with Microsoft. All the while giving a go by to cheaper oppurtunity of getting in to Open Source alternatives. Expect him to seed the market with dirt cheap Chinese set top boxes once his DTH business gets off the ground. And in contravention to all the rules, they are marketing their unlimited “broadband” as speeds of 150kbps.

Here is another first from the morons who are manning the “broadband”:

Subscriber’s experience of the Internet may vary depending on PC configuration, Internet performance beyond the Reliance network, and/or on the website or server being accessed.

Reliance remains a sore disappointment. A larger than life image of the company has been fuelled by the media which makes no sense in the present context. The promises that they made and what they have delivered has a stark contrast.

The similar argument can be extended to Reliance’s polyester business. Apart from the scale, they have not let any company rise in competition and are the monopoly. As a result it puts them in enviable position to command any price they need. Telecom is a different ball game altogether and I am sure that the smart people in Reliance would not have foreseen the unique challanges in the fragmented market and challange the dominance of another major player- Airtel.

I am glad that so far Sunil Bharti Mittal has not had the ego impulses to pen down his own biography and then buy it through proxy to drive up it’s sales! The last word in Reliance’s coffin has not yet been written and to make themselves meaningful to any extent, they would have to drive and scale up in Broadband- which is the future as far as communication is concerned. We would be moving to a wirefree world where data chunks matter the most. It has landed itself in an enviable position after buying up Flag Telecom. It is squandering and frittering away it’s home grown advantage in doing basically nothing.

No longer an enigma at all.

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Google is planning to set up a huge server farm in North Carolina. This follows a realisation that once the networks are used to download a huge amount of data, it would be impossible by the present set of ISP’s to manage their traffic. This is perhaps one of the major reasons why ISP’s in India are reluctant to offer any higher speeds to it’s users.

The whole premise of “broadband” in India (and elsewhere) is that not ALL the users would be logged in the network at the same time. This model has served the users and the ISP’s well. Most of the users are happy to surf blogs/ chat up or perhaps Skype for a good measure. The online games would be restricted to a “lucky set of few” who have the hardware to go along with it. Out of 10 lakh plus customers (if we can take the numbers on the face value), how many would be cribbing about the latency hassles? Not many. Give or take, you could find some of them bitching on the forums about the same. They are a woeful minorty and can be easily ignored.

Not unless the ISP’s get serious about augmenting their incomes from the same services they spite on. It is difficult to get the users try out something new; you could see some pilot based trials being offered and perhaps becoming a premium based service in the near future. However, imagine increased number of users signing up for the video services/IPTV et al. Can their networks handle the increased traffic?

Here in comes Google styled data centre. It is owning up a huge amount of fibre that’s available and setting up the data centres so that ISP’s could route traffic through it. We would become dependent on Google for everything. Our identities would be “googlelised” and we would be individual entities serving a corporations interest. Owning the Internet is a scary thought indeed.

Hence we need to decentralise the networks. However, strangely the lexicon of public ownership of the utilities is a misnomer. We dont have a say in the way we would want the services to run. We would want to have several backbones with zero latencies and make it affordable and cheaper to switch a broadband service provider. At the same time, explore real alternatives like broadband over power lines (a proof of concept that actually seems to work). Your electricity utility could offer you broadband connections; it should be easy to plug the gadgets in and surf Internet without any restrictions.

How this all shapes up is difficult to decide. I had earlier assayed my fears about the monopoly of BSNL and failure of the others to catch up with the “sinister” games of the monopoly player. It does sound alarmist in my opinion, but there are not enough players to invest in a national backbone and exploring the alternatives to digging the roadsides. Wireless is crowed about but there seems to be no proof of concept that wireless might be able to upstage the wireline networks.

BSNL might as well be tempted to stem the flow of information. The recent ban on the blogspot domain (where are multutude of idiots- so called Indie bloggers have their blogs scribbling down the colour of their underwears) is fresh in the memory. BSNL would then serve the ruling Government’s interest in playing the censor. So far, it has been successful in imposing their own code of morals.

Internet as we know needs to get away from the shackles of a few handful access providers and truly have an independent perspective.

(I thank the webmaster personally for keeping this website free. We did decide to have an adsense programme running but I was not keen on generating content to keep the adsense ticking or having bogus click throughs. We fiercely defend our point of view and intend to keep it this way for all practical purposes).

Robert Cringely has another take on the issue and of course, the tone and the write up is majorly “inspired” by his own insights.

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The year 2006 was in many ways a sad reflection on the telecom trends. We haven’t been promised the Mbps speeds; Reliance isn’t scaling up; Airtel is becoming slouchy like BSNL; BSNL has refused to up the stakes for others; TRAI is being subverted and we are seeing an all out war for consolidation of oligopolies.

The consumer, i.e. you has already won the asshole of the year award and this isn’t the right tone for shifting in a new year. How so much I try, I hate to admit that there is no “India shining” anywhere around here. Not atleast with the Congress in power.

Yet, the promise is around the corner. We would be f***ed harder for our hard earned money, the congestion in the networks is bound to grow and with the increased entry of the telecom majors, our national security is up for a song. A country like Pakistan just has to turn off our vital communications set up and we would be on our knees in any time.

If I can see the “predictions” right, Reliance is going to slow further on it’s landline business. Arguably, it is a business proposition which is on a loosing wicket; BSNL’s monopoly is well entrenched. Reliance’s CDMA business is not giving it’s returns (I suspect) which should have been well profitable much more than their expectations. GSM provides the scale because it makes it easier to fudge with the sale of the GSM cards and show increased number of subscribers. Its all about valuations and gloating rights.

Much of it has already been explored in the earlier write ups.

What we basically need is the power back to the consumer to take effective decisions.

As we move in the new year, the sale of Hutch is imminent. There are many suitors for the slut and who gets the “cake” is difficult to predict. It’s making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Whether or not it is the “new wave” of Indian Telecom is for you to decide.

On the high note, most of you have asked me about the swearing on here. I believe that this delivers the message far more effectively than saying that I am frustrated by the lack of serious pace around here. Our collective wisdom collapses like the Indian cricket team; which in my opinion mirrors the Indian psyche effectively. We are all bunch of wimps when it comes to taking effective decisions for ourselves.

I believe that the next thrust of the growth would come from the wireless Broadband (or whatever crappy name you want to give it). As the telcos scale up investments in “air” (literally), the growth of Wifi would perhaps mirror the growth in the number of subscribers. However, with a low user base of laptops or access points, I may be contradicting myself. WiMax is all hot air though.

As for the BSNL Broadband, the promised Mbps speeds are in order. Though they are only offering it for Bandwidth on Demand. The unlimited plan subscribers are out of the ambit for the time being. I think, the games portal would be up soon and we’d see even higher latency times for them. IPTV has made it’s presence felt this year; I still have to get a positive feedback from the users. If this is not backed up with a portal for one access, it would be a sheer waste for access. Indians aren’t really getting around and spending cash online. It would need a technology enabler to make this happen. Much like the IT hype (which is of no fucking use to this nation), the telecom hype is bound to peter away.

Sigh.

Still, I hope the new year brings forth happiness and cheer in your lives. For me it is majorly a chnage of calendar; I still have to go for my rounds tomorrow!

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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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This quarter has seen some record profits being posted by the telecom companies. How much of it is financial jugglery? I wouldn’t know. It is hard to believe the absoulte (or estimated numbers) of 115 million mobile subscribers and I would keep my negativism intact.

Reliance is revamping it’s operations. Arguably the days of megabit speeds would possibly take eternity and it’s broadband remains moribund. 150kbps unlimited? How can they market it as ‘broadband’? In the mobile space, Reliance is advertising a slew of handsets- aspirational stuff for the common masses indeed. The low prices are mostly for the Chinese handsets and my guess for it’s longetivity is as good as yours. The handset majors seem to avoid CDMA like poison and the real action is still in the GSM space.

Spice Punjab has seen major acquisition by Telekom Malaysia and they would be majorly using this inflow of money to upgrade their congested networks. According to a source, it would take roughly 3 months to start the due process. Meanwhile, Spice is planning to acquire licences for other circles. No doubt it would take time and efforts to update the whole due process. I shall keep you posted about this company. Primarily for a simple reason. It had perhaps one of the highest ARPU’s earlier on because it was the sole service provider in Punjab market. Things went on a downhill slide when Airtel, backed by Bharti, went on a major offensive against Spice. Spice has augmented it’s revenues by bundling the services with it’s own manufactured handsets.

MTNL has introduced IPTV and is charging 300 per month for free to air television shows. I haven’t seen IPTV ever in real time so it would difficult to pass any judgement on the same. BSNL has introduced gaming services and it seems to be nominal. The best part is that the gaming services donot get counted in the final bill or the data downloads so it should appeal to majorly. Unless of course, they put in the crappiest servers with a huge lag time. So by the time you poit and shoot your enemy, you are already dead!

BSNL was to announce a mega tender for it’s GSM lines which got nixed in the Delhi high court. I believe it was Motorola which was the aggrieved party. Strange. Had it been for Airtel (which announced the deal with Nokia), there are usually no court hearings. I am sure there is something wrong somewhere.

One India has been rejigged and relaunched with full page advertisements crowing about the “achievements” of the present government. It isnt worth the price of a toilet paper even with the foreign bitch’s face on it.

Reliance is offering Mobile blogging platform. You could see a lot of idiots trying to post in from their mobiles. Sure they would and then crow about it.

DTH is still not seeing the volumes to break even. However, the cable operators are running around scared kittens. They have reduced the monthly rentals (by underdeclaring the subscriber base) and surprisingly, the complaints are attended to. I am planning to go in for a DTH; though I am waiting for the market to throw up a clear differentiator from the existing players. Lets see how things work out.

Reliance is planning to launch the GSM services (apart from the North Eastern States it operated in). It may sound illogical thing to do but I am willing to go in by the GSM lobby that it works out to be cheaper as compared to CDMA. Even though CDMA as a technology is better than GSM. Does it mean that consumers would get more choice? I doubt. Though I do know that Anil Ambani has a lot of cash to burn up.

Bangalore is getting wireless internet connectivity in select areas. Mind you, it can’t solve it’s civic problems as yet.

On the personal front too, I am firmly entrenched in Radiation Oncology. I wish I could blog about it full time including the case discussions et al. However, the present state of affairs leaves me little time for anything else.

I do hope that I am able to update this blog on a regular basis. Though as usual, it is the RSS feeds that make sense. Thanks for sticking by and seeing through. I really hope that things change for the better.

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