There are excellent guides available to enable your wireless networking on your Debian and then choosing Tata’s apn to access the Internet. I would not go in those details. I had used a 3G stick and after ensuring the proper network coverage, on a Windows machine, added it to my Debian based laptop. Although recognized, it failed to connect on to network and neither there was any way to install the company issued dialer.

However, it worked fine in Windows world; it was auto-recognized and I could work on that. What I noticed was the horrible lag and the ping times, clearly making it useless for any one for online gaming. It’s next to impossible. At the same time, the video buffering was relatively smooth although nothing to write home about.

With pathetic “download limits” and huge costs, I had to nix the plan of going in for Tata Docomo; although I must confess that they have a reasonably good customer care. My point of contact has been their on line chat and their email’s work, albeit very late. This, in my opinion, is better than the other companies who don’t give a shit about after sales.

Would you go in for an expensive hardware and huge recurring monthly expenses? 3G is NOT for the data but for more efficient spectrum utilization. The voice market dominates because these operators have no intention of improving on the value added services.

Thats where their bread and butter lies. If 3G data services were really to become “cheap”, to so called “market forces” would determine the outcome. I find it amusing when people crow about prices coming down eventually. There would never be an “unlimited plan” because shoring up the capacity on wireless networks is a huge sunk in investment which is not easy to recover.

For the time being, this is a worst case alternative to a proper wireline/wifi model. If you don’t have any other frigging option in this heartless world, go for it.

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A lot has been made up for Google Chrome OS and it’s notebook. It transpires that Samsung and Acer would manufacture laptops for chrome OS.

Is cloud computing inherently better than the “offline model” we have come to rely on? If the recent Amazon outage is any indication, I would prefer not to stick with it. In the same vein, I prefer my data to stay with me.

However, there is a huge business opportunity lurking behind such an initiative. Manufacturers in India (for netbooks/laptops/tablets) are dependent on Microsoft for a tapered down version of it’s utterly useless operating system. They could have easily sponsored a home grown “Indian initiative” for Linux and installed it on a bare bones hardware with Wifi and 3G connectivity. I reckon that using ARM processors, a basic display unit with a keyboard would suffice the price limit of around $200-250. It can be done.

One doesn’t need dual cores to run the fancy software; in any case, I hardly use the computing power at my disposal. But there was no choice in the market. Antix (a derivative of SimplyMepis) or even Arch Linux are good enough alternatives (not to forget Fluxbox and XFCE or E17) as the alternative desktop platforms to power the applications.

The telecom companies could have easily subsidized the model, charging it in their monthly bills. A win win situation. An operating system free of any hassles and companies get to spread the hardware with bundled data plans. I had earlier explored the same option but I guess the fancy CEO’s (who are glorified assholes anyway), are not interested in the blurb.

So you’d find the Vodafone Zoozoo enticing people to try out 3G in a market where computing is still a luxury and smartphones market sorely limited.

Thats stupidity compounded by assholism (of the extreme); because crores are being spent on advertising to milk the few customers who venture to buy out the expensive data plans.

Blah blah blah.

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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.

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I have always supported Community Wifi Access. This is because mobile broadband is useless for heavy duty applications. 3G access is a passe’.

Aircel has not responded to my queries and neither I am interested to follow them up. I had earlier emailed them about the promotion of mobile apps. It isn’t clear how they were developed and what platform is supported.

But I was genuinely surprised to see their advertisements in main stream media for Wifi access through smart platforms (phones/laptops/tablets). Although the adverts did allude to a “rosy picture”; it is not entirely clear as to how they propose to pull it off with no identified “backend”. More so, it is important that Wifi needs to be scaled up to residential areas so that they enough traction to call the shots as well as have a positive spin off on their recently launched 3G options.

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This news has come in from FastCompany

As it says:
The Webbox is externally just a 14cm by 25cm QWERTY keyboard that has an RCA cable dangling from its rear–this coaxial cable will connect to a domestic TV tuned to a particular channel, and lets Webbox content appear on its screen. Inside it’s pretty sophisticated, with the guts of a 3G smartphone powering it–it runs over EDGE or 2.5G networks to get its data, and leverages Opera’s Mini browser suite (which compresses web pages to much smaller file sizes remotely) to ensure that the data burden on cell phone networks is low–which is good for low-income users and struggling cell networks alike–and that the device works swiftly.

It is an interesting concept. It combines a ‘mobile telephony’ through 2.5G (or horrors of horrors through GPRS) and thence output through your television.

I have run Opera Mini on my laptop through Java Emulator; it’s brilliant access at times when I don’t have access to Wifi. This Internet TV is something similar in it’s approach although they have routed the output through a usual TV.

However, this is not the end all. Heavy Java Script sites would not work; although the demo is not clear, Opera Mini is expected to run the mobile versions alone; this is not a very pleasant experience.

What gets my goose is that India has been lumped with the bygone nations -Kenya, Ghana and others. This only reflects their “poverty of thought” and generalized assholism. I am not a fan of Vodafone at all; despite their slick advertisements, it does nothing to “serve” it’s customers and perhaps one of the worst telecom companies. Nevertheless, this is a good innovation; it remains to be see how well they are able to capitalize on this, if and when it is launched.

Oh by the way, expect some rather crude “download limits”; these buggers are going to charge you per kb. Their billing systems are pathetic and try wrangling out the details from their customer care executives. You’d be appalled.

Last but not the least. Beyond certain “platitudes” and ass licking in the media (with crumbs thrown at the journalists and news papers), I really doubt whether they would have a mass market for it. They could have easily loaded up Opera Mobile instead.

And yes, as the dingbat in the advertisement says about “technological leap”, it isn’t so. The mobile phone circuits (and the RAM) is cheap with an output for the TV and external keyboard. It’s not big deal but it’s a good idea.

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I had earlier written about owning a Nokia E63:

I own a Nokia E63 but that’s about it. It’s the “low end” of the smart phone because the screen sucks. Ovi store sucks. There are no apps to speak of. It has a weird “signed” and “unsigned” policy which doesn’t allow me to load in any kind of an application I need. Yet, the Wifi is a great addition even though it has a restricted range. My mail is configured; is a boon when I am not around my laptop. In general, it works the work but then there is nothing that I exude my enthusiasm about owning this

This has been prompted by is steady decline in the US market where it has been drubbed nicely.

So what does it do next?

It shifts to Windows 7.

Inquirer has hit the nail on the head.

Elop tried to answer the question the world had, why the hell not Android, and his answer was lacking. He explained that he had spoken to Google about Android but it was rejected as Elop felt that Nokia could not differentiate itself among the Android handsets.

Trust me. If Nokia had shifted to Android, I would have shifted to it immediately solely because of the quality of the hardware.

But then Windows has been screwed royally in the back by Linux.

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I am not here to be a party pooper but if you look at the profile of the countries where broadband is a laggard, it speaks for itself. It only reflects a huge pent up demand for a “regular internet” than a crippled version of the mobile internet.

The beauty of Opera is that it’s available for a huge range of handsets; including java based crapware that is lowly bottom of the end stuff. Agreed that most people cannot afford a smartphone (it’s an overkill), still it reflects the pattern of usage.

This is bound to create a lot of interest for advertising which surprisingly Opera has been able to keep it as a free platform. Although I have tried the beta version of their mobile browser on Android, there is nothing to write home about; I invariably fall back on the Mini version. In case I have to tether my useless Docomo GPRS to my laptop, I use an emulator which makes checking email and going through some mobile optimized web site easily.

This also means that the desktop version is going to lag in “love”; something that Opera employees deny strongly. As a company, it has one of the worst outreach towards it’s customers; try getting the contact details of the key people. They seem to have “hired” forum trolls because any word of criticism is hushed up immediately or the forum thread locked up. Their extensions are bare bones (unlike the Chromium API which is fairly stable) and does not allow interaction with the key features of the browser.

This isn’t technical debate about how the browser wars play out in the real web but in my opinion, Chromium (on Linux) is perceptibly fast. Although Firefox Beta has seen a wonderful improvement over it’s previous versions but it’s useless implementation of extensions means that a bare bones browser is as good as useless.

Ironically, this post on Opera is made using Chromium; I use Feedly (intermittently for RSS Feeds), Google Reader with a focussed tab and souped up with wonderful extensions to make my life easier when going through over 500 articles per day. I have (yes, wonderful) Thunderbird for IMAP Access; although a bit of pain to focus on one window to another but Opera has screwed (and fucked) up it’s Mail implementation.

Hope that opera now implements it’s Fastmail acquisition properly. If I can read the tea leaves properly, Opera would want to leverage itself as a “leading brand for mobile applications/other than desktop” category. Primarily reason is that internet access is now moving away (slowly and steadily) from the desktop/laptop combination. With huge profit base in the mobile applications, I see that there is no reason to innovate on the Linux/BSD/alternative platforms over a period of time.

That’s where Chromium is slowly becoming the centre stage; with a slow but steady shift to cloud computing as a platform. Mobile access is one part of the key in this game.

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1) Smart phones and Android taking center stage with Nokia dying a slow death.

2) 2G spectrum scam

3) 3G mess.

There are tonnes of web sites scattered all around to tell you about Android’s home coming. I am not getting in the debate about what is good or bad but Apple (across the lines) remains aspirational because of it’s perceived value.

2G Spectrum scam has also been mentioned extensively with the political fall out affecting Congress and it’s cohorts; again the debate has been frittered away to be of any consequence.

3G Mess is bad. Really bad. Partly because it has been sold on lines of “only Internet access” you’d ever need. As mentioned in these columns (and comments) that none of the devices support advertised speeds of 21Mbps; more so, in absence of clear definition of what 3G speeds are, you would not really see much traction there. The operators have dreamt of fat profits accruing from the sales and perhaps are marketing different plans for mobile handsets and wireless modems. Docomo even explicitly prohibits “tethering” mobiles to laptops citing it as “violation of terms of use”; as it they can “prove it court of law”. Assholes.

4G is on the horizon and as such the media reports were peppered with what technology to choose. There are of course competing issues; I am not qualified enough to explain the merits/demerits of each.

Another highlight of this year was the final recognition of menace of telemarketing calls and sms (with sms rates being usurious and companies raking in huge profits from what is essentially free for them). I have written about it earlier but there are others in space who have written about it more extensively (Rajesh Jain on Telemarketing and SMS Spam[1,2,3,4,5])

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) would be a big issue in 2011. Although it has been launched in Haryana, there are not enough media reports about the impact of MNP on the same. Is it surprising? With telecom companies leading in advertisement spends, they hold enough leverage to influence reporting the issue. Hence I would remain blocked out on the same unless it becomes a major issue. However, they don’t give a shit to the users because there is no REAL choice between the service providers. Most of the new operators have yet not launched their operations (and hence got notices for the same) so it is difficult to comment on the same. I foresee a lot of activity in next year in terms of new players and mobile number portability to affect them. Yet, with the rise of cheap “chinese manufactured- Indian branded” hardware with dual and three SIM card slots, issues like MNP don’t hold much promise. Hence this too would remain a lot of hot air with some speculation towards “power to consumer”.

I have written extensively to TRAI, Department of Telecom and various stake holders in media about why need broadband and what is basic policy flaw in the system. This has also been a subject of my RTI applications being filed with them. At risk of sounding repetitive, we all need a proper system for growth of the nation and that is a foregone conclusion. However, the system is designed not to provide but to deprive the users from opportunities. If public good were at the heart of policy makers (and politicians), we would not have been a kangaroo republic (mistaken for a democracy).

I fail to understand the stupidity of media houses not to push for all inclusive growth in Broadband; since their own very future depends on it. I have briefly toyed with the idea of setting up a NGO; there is no scarcity of ideas that need to be implemented. What is lacking in this space is will to implement those ideas. The whole scenario is lumbering around like a giant iceberg. Yet as monotony in this space grows, Internet access is fuelled by explosive growth in social networking to Facebook’s data servers. Here in lies the rub. Media in India is even lacking in this space and focusing instead to try out experiments in their own walled microdomains expecting the advertisers to come on in hordes and expecting to rake in millions of dollars from advertising click throughs.

However, this dream lies shattered with corpses of media houses dotting the landscape instead. Content is supreme and while we retain the numero uno position for generating mountains of crap in terms of bollywood export, this has not found a “release” except from traditional channels of multiplexes and to some extent, DTH. Instead, we don’t have a Hulu or Netflix like player capitalizing on this aspect of delivery. 3g cannot do it. 4g cannot do it. Wifi perhaps. Broadband on wirelines- definitely.

This blog has also seen some write ups on the need to tone up internet exchanges, need for TRAI to jig up it’s broadband policy and a call for Public Internet cafes. Interestingly, we also saw NDTV’s programme on broadband which we linked on to and perhaps the first in a long long time coming in from mainstream media. TRAI did talk about “fair usage policy” although in context of telecom tariffs. Another highlight was my post on online education and something on cloud computing in respone to Chrome OS.

This, by and large, what I had written with some guest posts. I have already filed in RTI application with BSNL as listed and I am awaiting their response. My only aim to get to root on pricing on Broadband, the mess and perhaps get a better deal on it in the long run. The first step is perhaps to re-define broadband from it’s present definition. I am also planning to involve TRAI in this loop along with perhaps Department of Telecom and see how they differ. Although TRAI is the regulator, the real power lies with DoT. Yet, it is a blame game that they are likely to play. DoT would say that TRAI has to come up with regulations first. TRAI would say that DoT is the real boss and they have to come up with a “circular”. No one wants to work and consumer gets the fuck of his life.

I have seen the Indians from close quarters. They would suffer all the insults with great temerity and humbleness. Perhaps it is the servile attitude that is ingrained in their psyche. Neither we are going to see a good amount of activism to make the public institutions deliver nor are the companies going to make any efforts to tone up their services. It costs real money to keep up with after sales service which actually eats up the profits and hence customer service is perhaps the last of ideas on their minds.

This post by itself is a huge huge post in a long long time! Maybe perhaps, I have written about trends subconsciously which I feel would impact the telecom landscape in some way or the other. The market is not geared towards course correction but is littered with asymmetric information to disadvantage of consumers. Sadly proactive approaches, either at regulator level or mass media or even at consumer level is sorely lacking.

The new year is not going to change this scenario in any manner whatsoever.

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It can also be argued that Cloud computing offers a “cheaper alternative” for net access. For all the noise behind Chrome OS, it remains a re-worked implementation of Linux under the core with fancy “apps” and the browser as central to the computing experience.

To be honest, I hardly use my laptop for anything else. My computing time is solely meant for web access and once Google Voice/Skype have sense enough to implement the technology across the browsers, the other mode of “desktop applications” would become redundant.

It can also be argued about Google OS to be a cheap and effective way to roll out the product or say something like Airtel coming up with a fancy idea of having Airtel-Google branded laptops or netbooks being given “free” with contracts. However, for all this optimistic line of thought, I feel that the market is still not ripe to jump the gun.

Lets see what does Eric Schmidt has to say about it:

With Chrome OS, we have in development a viable third choice in desktop operating systems. Before there was no cloud computing alternative—now we have a product which is fast, robust and scalable enough to support powerful platforms. It’s something computer scientists have been dreaming about for a very, very long time. The kind of magic that we could imagine 20 years ago, but couldn’t make real because we lacked the technology. As developers start playing with our beta Cr-48 Chrome OS computer, they’ll see that while it’s still early days it works unbelievably well. You can build everything that you used to mix and match with client software—taking full advantage of the capacity of the web.

Ignore the brave words.

There is a competing product from Google: Android. It can again be effectively argued that they are separate and none can be adapted for other usage. I digress.

Android, despite ruling the roost on the mobile handsets, needs a lot more polish and push from Google to make it auto upgradeable. I own one from Samsung and hate the loaded crapware. I’d have to flash the ROM and install something else but that’s left from some other day.

Yet in this saga, can Google ever hope to monetise it’s offering? I can assume that after the Chrome OS reaches a critical mass (if and ever), it would be flooded with advertisements. Owning a laptop with loaded Chrome OS is the perfect platform for targetting those niggly ads that guarantee you a better erection in bed. In any case, the volumes are going to come only from the enterprise and that is not going to change in a hurry.

Brave words indeed but here’s a sampling of the common sense that has prevailed in the dark corners of cyberspace:

And any reasonably competent IT executive can plainly see that Google, for all of their algorithmic might, isn’t known for product longevity.

Sure, their core web products have been around for a while and aren’t going anywhere. But they launch a lot more products every year that we quickly forget about, and many of the unsuccessful products are quietly discontinued a few months or years later.

Google’s just not in the business of providing long-term support for an unsuccessful product line. It’s part of what allows them to keep releasing new things all the time while geeks declare Microsoft a boring old dinosaur. But IT departments need their platform vendors to behave much more like Microsoft.

Sad but true.

Hence, in this scenario, I don’t foresee a bright future but it seems to be another flash in the pan from the mavericks. It’s hard to say how this shapes up, how they advertise or strike deals with the manufacturers or how they wish to tone up their advertising platform.

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Interestingly, the working model displayed by Google has a tie up with Verizon who I believe is in the process of setting up 4G networks for faster broadband access and has gone live in 38 plus cities in US. India is not far behind in the 4G race though and it is Mukesh Ambani who plans to get in the race.

Possibly, I foresee limited accounts with perhaps bundled connections. Mukesh and his cohorts would be very happy to mass produce Chinese crapware bundled with some customized version of Google OS/Jolicloud kind of a mash up. I remember some dorks advertising on Business Standard about network computing; they haven’t replied back to a long list of my queries though a subsequent letter to the editor was published. (I am too lazy to fish out the bookmarks for the time being).

Hence, 4G (LTE) or cloud computing is too esoteric concept for this nation. It is something similar to One laptop per Child project to which Indian Government mercifully rejected the contention. Instead they were keen to promote something like $20 laptop or something. Idiots.

I am not too keen to trust on the cloud computing in any form. I keep a back up of all my files and in any case, it needs polished networks without huge amount of latency built in. Otherwise, the end user experience would be pathetic. It does allow for “off line” usage but I am not too keen on such a product.

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According to Neilsen survey (here), both Android and Apple iPhone are increasing their market share. It was in news recently that Apple had increased it’s market capitalization as compared to Microsoft and overtook it for a good measure. Steve Ballmers reaction was subdued even though he crowed that it is Desktop that matters the most. The debate has shifted to cloud computing; whether it is relevant in the present context and whether people would shift their loyalties. Smart phones have becomes means to access the cloud; either by applications (sandboxed for a good measure so that it doesn’t crash the OS), or by browsers.

Here in, Android and Apple iphone OS is leading the mindspace. Since the pictures in the Neilsen survey are under copyright, I cannot copy and paste them; but it is clear that traditional players are loosing the space. Blackberry is jaded and crap dip shit hiked prices make no sense; specially when they want to crack the Indian market. in a similar vein, Android is focused on the American market because thats the place where SOME action is taking place. Nokia isn’t a surprise omission because it’s symbian OS as a platform for a smart phone is ham handed by serious lack of apps.Those assholes need a bummer up their ass to make the phones more worthwhile because dip shit policies don’t work. Having a broad range of compatibility with the different email service providers is good but to make a phone “interesting” and “must have” needs hard work and a marketing muscle.

Coming back to the original question. Can the smartphone be the next wave of computing? Is the day of the laptop or the netbook numbered? It isn’t so because these are different ways of accessing the same thing. Ways and means matter. End don’t.

What does it mean for Indian consumer? It means nothing. Because the smart phone market is limited to a minuscule percentage of people who would perhaps drive the value added service associated with impending 3G (or any of it’s avatars). Which means Data. The network operators are going to ration the resource because it has been claimed that a regular tom dick or harry doesn’t need the bandwidth as compared to “top 5% of the users” who “clog the network”. It is the regular tom dick and harry who need “enough bandwidth” to access their email.

Fact of the matter is that in absence of a decent option, smart phones in India are more likely to remain a “show off”; much more like the “object of desire” whose utility is of questionable value.

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Opinion is like an asshole. Everyone has got one. In same vein, your choice of a mobile phone may be distilled by either looks or form factor or even aesthetics. You may choose practicality or some chutzpah to flaunt your handset.

What Apple did everything right, Nokia screwed it up big time. I am impressed by Apple’s hardware; yes at some point of time, I have written extensively about it too. Yet, I believe that the “promise of future” has somehow not materialized. You can side with Apple and say that everything about it “rocks”; but on the other hand, it’s wayward policy of introducing the bottom of pyramid handsets and “improving” it all the way up with new releases doesn’t cut ice with me. Apple has sold it’s hardware in the same manner in order to keep itself relevant.

Nokia, surprisingly, despite it’s huge portfolio of products has not been able to get that ‘killer phone’. For example, Apple releases only one or maybe two versions of it’s popular product. It does not try to address EVERY segment of the market. It knows it can command a premium. It has a brilliant marketing strategist behind it. It manages to stay in news even when there is NO imminent product launch. Everything about it is hotly anticipated so much so that there are legions of website devoted to “rumors”. And it has zealous fanboys dotting all around the net and mainstream publications which keeps the chattering classes busy to have this “must have” product.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, one could argue that you don’t want a walled garden approach to apps. You pay for the product and the ecosystem should come “free” for you. In effect, the software ought to be “free”. No company has the right to “lock you” down with absurd patents or “standards”.

Nokia has been bereft of this. I own a Nokia E63 but that’s about it. It’s the “low end” of the smart phone because the screen sucks. Ovi store sucks. There are no apps to speak of. It has a weird “signed” and “unsigned” policy which doesn’t allow me to load in any kind of an application I need. Yet, the Wifi is a great addition even though it has a restricted range. My mail is configured; is a boon when I am not around my laptop. In general, it works the work but then there is nothing that I exude my enthusiasm about owning this.

Ultimately, there are no easy answers to this. I feel that it would definitely take a worthwhile investment and understanding of marketing dynamics to get Nokia to sell or crack the smart phone market. I am fussy about Open Source and Linux in particular. I feel that Windows mobile is outdated junk. Web Os or Android is something that I never tried but needs a lot of spunk to give it some credibility. Nokia’s Maemo platform has to become “cheaper” because those assholes are trying to milk it for all that is worth it.

I am linking to Rashmi Bansal (author of two books now!) who writes about owning Nokia AND an Apple Phone. The difference is obvious. From a woman’s perspective, she chooses an iPhone.

Truth be told. Even I need an iPhone!

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I am still searching for a capable smart phone in order to ease up my twisted life a bit. Having a Wifi enabled handset would logically be an extension of my desktop. Literally. I have managed to make my bluetooth work on Ubuntu and sync my Nokia to it. I have a back up; if I have a Wifi enabled handset it would allow me to catch up on the VoIP market as well.

Annoyances remain. The current crop of the VoIP players donot allow any degree of interconnectivity. All of them have “secretive protocols”; no one sticks to open and secure standards. It would be great to call a Skype customer from a Gizmo enabled set and thus bringing about true interoperability. I dont see this happening anytime soon; for the time being I’d have to rant about it. It is the similar case with the chat clients; although Pidgin has made things easier to connect to different chat protocols and all the while I can connect to them all! I needed something similar for VoIP; i guess when there is enough demand, someone would find a way to this messy problem as well.

Nevertheless, I was thrilled to know that Wifi enabled handsets can work with those carriers who can offer UMA for phone calling over WiFi networks. It’s a technology that allows you to make voice calls over WiFi and switch fairly seamlessly between GSM and WiFi calls. No need for a separate VoIP account and application on the phone (i.e.: Skype).UMA works only with GSM and it’s technically not VoIP as are SIP services. UMA provides a pipeline or tunnel for pure GSM to travel through via IP.

This means that an end to end connected network like Airtel could easily offer something like this. All it needs to do is to cut deals with smartphones manufacturer; most likely it’s going to be some Chinese crap. Sell it aggressively with it’s broadband connections. It’s a win win deal ; at end of the day everyone likes to yap for free in this country. Routing the calls through Wifi is cheap; very cheap. I am not sure whether there are any security implications or not. Unless there isn’t, it would take real guts and grunge marketing efforts on Airtel’s behalf to make this happen.

They would have a real deal on that count.

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The “pundits” claim that this would give MTNL a first mover advantage over the existing players. 3G auctions have been in a mess; with regulations changed over at whims and fancies of the chosen few. TRAI doesnt have any locus standi over the existing state of affairs which makes for a very disappointing scenario. Nevertheless, the age of the “fast mobile speeds” are in the offing and full fledged services would roll out from next year onwards.

If the MTNL would have applied their minds to this golden goose, they could have easily sold branded 3G handsets. They are expecting a certain percentage of people to upgrade their existing connections or use their handsets as modems to connect to the laptops. A USB dongle is expected to cost around 3.5K with no word yet on the quantum of the downloads allowed. If the boffins are going to restrict the limits to say 500 MB or 1 GB or something like that, it makes no sense and it is a self defeatist service.

I do expect a significant percentage of people to shift to the mobile Internet; partly because of the high cost of access on landline and partly because most of them do not like to stay stuck on one place for net access. The cost of the handsets is falling over; Nokia and their ilk are falling all over the place to bring better technology in your hands. This would be a big differentiator for MTNL to shore up their revenues via value added services since ring tones and call back services have been done to death. The mobile operators have to think beyond their standard fare to increase their share; improve billing and introduce mechanisms for quicker complaint resolution.

Rajesh Jain has interesting take on the “red and blue” mobile market in context to 3G services and the VAS.

I am watching MTNL’s roll out with interest. For all practical purposes, 3G remains the ONLY high point in 2008 in which otherwise has been a flat and dull year for broadband penetration.

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Broadcom never ever designed it’s chips to work with linux in general. It took a lot of effort to make it work; I had to download and install the drivers, search up forums and pair the router to the modem. It was a concerted effort that lasted well over a period of 3 days….every effort was worth it for sure.

I am typing this out as a You tube video streams out to my laptop. I would looking forward to get a phone that supports Wifi and check out what the fuss about the Opera Mini is all about i.e. surf wirelessly on another handset. It’s all about connectivity. Maybe a phone that installs Skype and I could use the Wifi connection to connect to people around the world. The possibilites have opened up.

Its a dream come true; finally managed to have something that people around the world did. Its a long way off the mark but then imagine when the world opens up at the fingertips for those who have never been able to do so otherwise earlier on. Thats the power of pervasive Internet and that is something I want for all. I hope that this utopian dream comes true.

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For all practical purposes, I have come to loath Windows Vista. Its a memory hogging crappy OS and remains a watered down version of their previous avatar XP. I had to load up Vista to run some software which does not have Linux equivalent; although I didnt realise that I could use Wine for the same. Nevertheless, I hunted Google for installing Ubuntu via a bootable pen drive and the good folks at Ubuntu had their entire documentation on their forums.

It took about 20 minutes to boot into a fully usable OS. There is no dramatic incremental change in the OS as compared to the previous versions; this seems to be a fair enough review.

I do install Opera and the msttcorefonts because I cannot imagine the life without them. Unfortunately, the fonts offered as a default install are ugly. Hence, I had to revert back to MS fonts. Surprisingly, Open Office is available in it’s old avatar. I dont have many issues with it because the major incremental improvement for their presentation version was in the use of tables. I wish, it had a more refined look than the clunky sozzled up appearance it has. It’s a matter of time though that they catch up with the mainstream software once they realise that looks do matter.

Overall, I am happy to find my computing nirvana. I am signing off their post by a compiz fusion video. It remains the perfect example of how open source can easily outdo the existing feature on Vista. Enjoy.

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I still cannot understand the “mobile story” and “fastest growth” crap. More and more people are migrating towards parallel connections instead of the trickle down effect as expected. Agreed that “lifetime incoming offers” have appealed to the segment of population who keep their mobiles only for incoming calls, the precentage is far and few inbetween. We have no break up of the demographic profile and if the trends are to be seen, much of the money and the effort is being poured in the metros where there is more of a spending power as compared to other cities.

I have three telephone connections; one for regular use, the other a landline for broadband access and the thrid for calling up other Reliance numbers. Overall, I fail to understand as to how they would account for the “churn” or the “fastest growing segment” because I have never been enamoured of using the VAS. The operators know that there bread and butter segment is the voice calls and I am sure that they would implement the VoIP solutions to cut down on their costs. Everything else is flotsam and media generated hype.

In the same vein, most of the other handset manufacturers are clearly not making any efforts to address the cost of the handsets. Barring the advertising costs, if they implement open source solutions for the newer PDA’s, it can reduce the cost of the handsets to a large extent. Google’s Android would effect this to a large extent; though, I would reserve my comments on it till the time I actually get to use it. It’s still in the nascent stage; I am sure it would mature with the next release as they learn from their mistakes.

Vodafone has not addressed the GPRS connection charges; I still have to come across a reliable operator who can ensure a seamless connectivity across the major highways. I would want to access the Internet on a long boring journey; it remains a pathetic experience to even open up the mailbox. I don’t favor the mobile net on the move partly because of my bais for broadband and partly because it’s assinine to peer in the small screen. Unless of course, one has an iPhone and Safari which makes it a pleasure to surf on the small screen. Brilliant conceptual implementation.

The elections are nearing and I am keeping my fingers crossed for some semblance of the maturity on the following government to provide a clear direction to the broadband access and policy. We can do a lot more once we have a reliable connectivity. We dont need fancy laptops for kids in rural India to demonstrate the “modern with rural” mating. Its assinine to pour in money for something which just remains a showcase and earns you f***ing brownie points for “corporate social responsibility”.

This is just a loose string of thoughts as I was travelling back down. Although, it is a fascinating experience to see the rural landscape change. We realise that there is a lot of untapped potential and there is a chance to “change”.

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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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BBC says that Intel has bid goodbye to the project and instead wants to focus on it’s version of a run down “cheap” laptop. All “noble intentions” indeed. I am glad that the frigging babus did not invest crores of public money to support the hair brained idea. Nevertheless, I report here because there was lot of hue and cry about the “mesh networking” and the works.

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Microsoft has been dominating the computer scene for over tow decades now ever since the personal computing came into picture. It is immaterial as to how they achieved their “dominance”. To them, stealing intellectual property rights and passing it off as their own is second nature. They have a whole army of lawyers to battle the companies and frequently tends to settle out of court by paying in huge monies. The owner is the world’s richest man and grows richer by the second. The employees are well paid and I believe that they are taken care off.

On the other hand, there are a group of “hackers” who pit in their brains to make the “free” software work. Their de facto spokesperson which includes the likes of Richard Stallman go around the world propagating free software. Much of the work has been done by these renegade folks who work behind the scenes to create software which is open source which means that anyone can modify their work and release in public.

Much of criticism of Microsoft has been about their stranglehold over the hardware manufacturers. This was evident over the release of Windows Vista which required users to “upgrade” to be able to use a fancy interface which by itself is utterly useless. Still, the company piled on cash to advertise the “features” by trying to induce people to use something that wasn’t really worth it.

Idealism apart, the incremental nature of the hardware complexity has meant that there is a bewildering array of choices in front of a consumer. It becomes difficult to choose and not to fall for the advertising glitz. With the release of new software, the support for the previous versions slowly vanes away. With every version release and “features” the users are forced to upgrade their hardware in order to make the features work.

I faced similar predictament a week back. I have been using Ubuntu on my laptop but howsoever hard I tried, I could not make my webcam or my wireless work. I have been facing issues with my trackpad not working out of the box; it was next to impossible to get the support from the forums or the designated support structures. My usage for the laptop was suboptimal because I could not use the hardware that I had paid my hard earned money to use.

However, I could easily set up the same hardware in Vista which had come previously installed with the same. Wireless worked flawlessly and so did the data transfer. Setting up the network was “easy” and it was a matter of getting used to putting the right buttons to click.

How does this user experience matter? I have been waiting for the “perfect” Linux distribution that would be truly plug and play. No doubt that a lot depends on the hardware manufacturers to release their drivers in the Open Source. Still, the usage for Linux remains sub optimal in the sense that even though the hardware is made to work, the full functionality is not utilised. For example, my laptop speakers are dolby enabled and can create a variety of sound effects depending on the equaliser settings in Vista. Even though the sound works in Linux, the effects don’t. In effect, it doesn’t really translate into “customer delight”.

I installed Open Suse (which is rpm based distro) and started missing the convenience of Debian. Still, it has really come in a long way from what the earlier versions had been and as I understand, a lot of work is being devoted to making majority of laptops work. I feel that at this pace, it would truly take a lot of time before anything meaningful materialises and an ordinary user would really need some working knowlede of command line interface to make things work for him/her in Linux.

This brings us to the questions that I had raised about copyright and the copyleft. There are no clear cut winners here and it only depends on the nummber of people propping up either side of the divide. I have my system in a dual boot and for “emergency” while travelling or for WiFi access, I have to depend on Vista. Maybe perhaps, in the near future, the distros would be polsihed enough to translate into a happy user experience. Otherwise, presently, I am sticking on to Dual Boot solely because of idealism for Linux and nothing else.

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