It’s easy to see the bias of the author about the “impoverished” Indians but there is too much optimism about targeting the benefits. The fact that the Aadhar scheme doesn’t really address the basic issue of data privacy, it is too much of a gamble.

Nandan also mentions about setting up a massive server farm for the data requests. The lack of Broadband at the peripheral level has hampered the data collection (that was a no brainer); which means that the basics have not been sorted out. The article also mentions about the queries to the database and problems cropping up later to be fixed. If I am not mistaken, this is as dumb assholism as it can get. Reason? All potential issues need to ironed out before data collection on a massive scale is carried out.

In my opinion, having a fault tolerant broadband over fixed line is imperative. The growth of the mobile telephony and hence the crappy 3G implementation is not in the public interest. Given the price structure of the data plans, there is no way that a reliable network geared for the public good is utilized for it’s need.

At the same time, public service networks like BSNL/MTNL need to be flogged for dragging their feet for missing the rural broadband plans. Wimax/LTE etc are good enough in theory but there is a theoretical limit to the extent of the data that can go through wireless.

Aadhar scheme is a hair brained exercise; much like the emperors clothes. Useless in execution with purported benefits not spelled out and absolutely no word on the data privacy.

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There have been some attempts in the past (this post beautifully highlights what has been covered in India) However, practical suggestions apart, barring a mention in the media for the same, I have no clue about their present status.

One of the biggest obstacle in community funding is the funds. It’s impossible to get people excited about a shiny new broadband because of huge capital expenditure. One easy way out of this mess is to involve the Government to invest after negotiating long term rates with suppliers. This would make it easier and technically, BSNL and MTNL are public owned entities in their own right. It is a separate matter that their decision making is isolated from what is required to what is actually provided.

Hence, I don’t remain convinced about the community networks. There are ownership issues; we know in Indian model of “board membership” means a permanent way to swindle funds. Indians unfortunately, have lost touch with community participation and has remained in the hands of few well meaning NGO’s; some of them might get a mention in main stream media but no one talks about their failures.

However, running an Internet cafe on community lines is different from owning the actual line. Barring a nominal amount of capital expenditure (one needs funds for everything!), there is no other way any such model could sustain itself.

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It is not hard to imagine that Baijal did everything to subvert the process of fair “process” and instead chose to suck and align himself with the corporates, public be damned. It is the lure of these post retirement positions in high places that massages their assess and prostates which makes them vulnerable to poaching. Who gives a damn to the paying public? No one. Perhaps you all idiots deserve this because you elect the same set of bastards (or perhaps don’t vote at all).

Here’s what I had written about Baijal the ex TRAI boss way back in March 2006. It is relevant even now.

Sir, I understand that you are about to retire. Well, finally, yours would be a good farewell. You might end up writing your memoirs (for which I am sure there would be enough “intellectual idiots” to wax and wane about you) or join a board of some telecom company; Reliance is a good option. It’s the calling card for most of the retired bureaucrats who network with old pals.

I have always supported the last mile access option. Why the fuck should BSNL/MTNL sit over miles and miles of old copper wire to premises? All of this is going waste!

Here’s again what I had written way back in the same post:

Sir, there is a lot you can do still. Despite the fact that BSNL Broadband connectivity being one of the most expensive means of access, you have refused to take any action against them. While in your regime, Broadband was introduced, you could have insisted to open up the last mile access.

Still, the reason to dig this Baijal up was that he has been raided in the ongoing Telecom Scam ramifications. This is what Business Standard has to report:

Baijal, who retired from Trai in 2006, is employed by another of Radia’s firms, Noesis. The former IAS officer of the 1966 batch was the disinvestment ministry’s first secretary when it was created.

Here’s a bit about Noesis (a consultancy firm floated by Radia- among the four in the scanner):

NOESIS is a professionally managed corporate & strategic business advisory firm. The key promoters come with extensive experience, understanding & knowledge of process of governance framing of public and regulatory polices in different spheres of the economy with over 300 man years of collective experience in consulting on issues at macro and micro level, with excellent networking and delivery capabilities across different geographies and levels.

One starts smelling the rat. Interestingly it does not mention anything about the people involved in their “management”.

It is no surprise that Baijal has been caught in the cross fire. Everyone knows that this is a “professional hazard” and in this stage of life, they would be able to weather the storm with no accountability. It remains to be seen as to how within power Baijal affected the public policies to benefit the chosen few, how public interest was trampled upon because this bugger chose to quote ONLY for the corporates and how you as a customer can demand accountability.

The easiest way out id to file RTI application, ask them for all the file notings under his rule and that should set the record straight. After my own prior commitments are over, I plan to do the same in the future. And write about this all here.

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I have ranted here enough, cried hoarse over the “interest” of media in Broadband issues. Even when they take it up (in the past few years), they have made a mess of the whole thing and situation. There is no sustained campaign. No sustained interest. Scams after scams are being generated to deflect public attention and all the while Broadband or issues related to it would be relegated to background.

I have tried, on several occasions to tie up with some media house, even write in a column free of cost, just to make the voice heard. Yet, they persist with inane shit about “controversies” with reams of newsprint being focused only on the “affairs” or the crap Page 3 shit. Serious issues about competitiveness and lack of ICT initiatives (or even a discussion on it) is beyond reach.

Why? Why? Why? Why is the country fucking hostage to overgrown old idiots in TRAI with enlarged prostates? Those idiots would be content in having a rectal massage than doing something concrete. Or for that matter the fucking cobwebbed idiots stinking and rotting in their own fucking excrete in Sanchar Bhawan (or BSNL/MTNL) totally fucking devoid of any imagination to progress further than what they have.

It’s hard to imagine the glacial pace of work; now media as the “fourth pillar of democracy” has also seriously eroded. It was always alleged but this is more of a direct proof of their involvement. The worse, well, is not yet over. Barkha Dutt is being ripped apart on Twitter, blogs and everywhere; evidently no one likes her.

Enjoy this video:

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Amid demand for ouster of Telecom Minister A Raja on account of 2G spectrum allocation, former Telecom Secretary D S Mathur today said that his proposal for auctioning the radiowaves was ignored.

Raja has been claiming that he managed to break the cartel of telecom players and managed to give 2G spectrum to new players to bring in competition that resulted in massive growth in the sector, besides lowering of tariffs.

Anyway, like the famous (or infamous Common Wealth Games) controversy, this too would die a natural death.

What I wanted to highlight here was the quote in the mainstream press (and final admission by Government on paper) that there has been a cartel of powerful operators. Thats the reason why they ignore your complaints, firewall you from the higher ups and give you a middle finger. Thats the reason no one bothers; forums or no forums.

I see a lot of sissies and misguided idiots venting out their frustration but not willing to go out to that extra mile to screw the companies.

What prevents the Indians to get together and file a class action suit against them? What is that holds you to file multiple RTI applications with TRAI, Department of Telecom, BSNL and MTNL to uncover the true cost of telephony and force them to bring more transparency?

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Docomo was supposed to launch it’s 3G services from today but it remains a classic example of how NOT to do things. First and foremost is that there ought to be a clear line of communication about the services, what it entails, the expected costs and charges and how the existing GPRS users are going to be migrated to 3G. Common sense dictates that customer care should be informed accordingly and be trained instead of a dumb shit moron trying to answer the queries from “educated and enlightened customers”. Instead, Docomo has failed to inform me in advance about the same. I registered for their “newsletter” but it seems that their backend has conked off. Who is their provider? IBM? Pooh pooh.

Spewing out the venom is not going to help here and neither going to make a difference to the dodos sitting at the top. But we have some expectation from a company that has made a big name for itself in Japan. Yet, at the same time, one should not forget that it is a the Tata’s pedigree which is at work and they are known to pick up the worst among the best for manning their services. This is reflected in their thought process, their work and general approach to telecom services.

Ideally, instead of ham handed approach, they ought to have been clear and transparent. They should have clearly mentioned the service areas, the expectations from their service, the expected speeds and network and the possible charges.

I have always opposed the 3G services and instead always argued for stepping up investments in wireline. The major reason is that 3G can support “fast speeds” but is limited to spectrum and when more customers join the party, it is going to be a major disaster for the company. This has been seen in mature markets where 3G is synonymous with pathetic services. Further, high costs for “unlimited access” is plain stealing. No one likes the crap of “fair usage policies”. For most, GPRS is decent approach because mobile broadband sucks.

Lets see what the company has to offer and how it plans to market it. It has set up a separate page for the same and I am wondering who okayed this kind of pure crap. (with loads of grammatical errors and mistyped words- emphasis mine).

Here’s from the horse’s mouth:

Now DO the new with 3G, at a refreshingly fast pace. Coming from the world leaders in 3G, Tata DOCOMO 3G is an all-new way to experience life on the go!
Life on 3G is definitely fastera, richer & exciting. With Tata DOCOMO 3G, your mobile phone is no more just a device that makes calls – it””s a TV, a theatre, a gaming console and a satellite camera all at once. Do much more with your smartphone than you ever imagined!

Now can anyone of these dumb fucks ever care to explain about “satellite camera”? PMSL

It also makes tall claims about playing “3D games”. And it speaks about “better network security”. WHOA!!

Here’s one for starters:

Selection_001 –

Here’s another monstrosity:

Selection_002 –

Instead of a cluster fcuk of news with overdrive of PR agencies to bombard the message, Docomo should be clear of what they want. Assholes.

I suspect that some research agency is behind their PR efforts. Here is what one dumb fcuk had to say about Tata Docomo 3G on DNA (Newspaper) and I quote:

Sujay Misra, managing director of AZ Research Partners, says one of the reasons for this is their subscriber-base is predominantly low-end. “You need to have the right instrument (high-end mobiles and smartphones) to get access to 3G services. Also, BSNL and MTNL have not bothered to educate their customers about the 3G services,” he said.

Really? Why would they even bother to put you on print? This is what you get from paying your way through, you moron?

Hence, Tata Docomo is a MONUMENTAL FAILURE even before it has seen it’s commercial activity. There are people crowing about this company getting it’s “first mover advantage” but other companies in the fray are investing in 3G for spectrum and more customers. Data services are not even on their minds. The reason? There is no dedicated system for “apps” and they are sold as “value added services” to shore up “extra revenue” but not at the expense of voice calls. They still make profits on voice calls. This is a heterogeneous market and no one size fits all. Despite the marketing chutzpah, voice still remains bread, butter (and jam) for these companies. Give or take SMS.

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

NIXI is supposed to be a non-profit organization (that part I believe), however it allows ISPs to essentially charge each other tariffs of Rs25 per GB. At 1gbit/s, with an in:out ratio of 3:1 and utilization of 80% or so, this comes out to a total monthly bill of Rs44 lakh, or about Rs17/GB.

That’s a hell of a lot of coin, considering that 2 months of that could pay for a year’s supply of bandwidth to Singapore. Yes, a year (well, a single STM-1 @ 155mbit/s, anyway, but the cost still only works out to about Rs13/GB).

As you can imagine, if I, as an ISP, can save Rs4 PER GIGABYTE, I’m damn well going to,

otherwise I have to pass that on to you – the consumer.

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

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

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

The solution? A new peering exchange.

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

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

———————————————————————————————————-

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

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

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Yes, you heard me. India is not the only country with FUPs – check some ISPs abroad. I dare you.

While I support the move to increase the lower-limit to 2mbit/s, the reason for the ISP’s opposition to this is obvious: the financial implications are huge. BUT SPEED DOESN’T COST: Gigabytes do.

All differ depending on the technology in question, but generally speaking I can deliver you 1 gigabyte at 1, 20, 50 or 100 megabits and with a small variation in the actual cost of the equipment (ADSL, VDSL, Fiber), it costs me basically the same. Consider now the various plans available from Airtel, BSNL, Tata, Reliance and others with roughly the same size data-cap: with a price difference based strictly on speed. Doesn’t that piss you off?

(Case in point: Airtel’s 30 and 50mbit/s plans. Both 200GB data caps. Delivered at 30mbit/s or 50mbit/s. Price: Rs1,000 different). #FAIL

So while the slow speeds and tiny data-caps and FUPs may seem like profiteering now, at the current pricing levels (under Rs2000), mandating an increase to a minimum of 2mbit/s (which I personally am hoping for) to call the product “Broadband” would seriously damage profitability of ISPs whose costs can be up to Rs20/GB – or more (depending on their negotiating skills!)

That is, unless some things change.

First: wholesale prices need to come down - 1Cr per year for 155mbit/s is outrageous (even 50 lakhs is still outrageous). On USA-UK, Singapore-USA, Japan-USA, you can get 10Gbit/s for about US$10k/month.

Considering that of all the capacity to India (total is about 20-23 terabits right now) the total usage is still only being measured in gigabits, it’s clearly not a capacity problem, it’s a price problem.

Secondly, NIXI’s tariff structure to be changed to a flat-rate – nowhere else in the world charges per GB at the peering-exchange! In fact, I’d be happy to pay Rs3,00,000 per MONTH for 1gbit/s if the per-GB charges were eliminated.

Thirdly, Local Loop Unbundling – I would suggest (both as an foreigner and as someone starting an ISP) that this be done as soon as possible. Yesterday is better. In fact, it should have been done in 2004 when it was suggested originally – perhaps India would not be in the situation it is now.

But if it is done, then we can eliminate dependence on cablewalas, as they aren’t helping India’s Broadband situation, and BSNL/MTNL can start to get another revenue stream from ISPs who want to lease the copper.

Of course, I outlined all of this in the document to which Sushubh & I contributed but the author of this article (Caught in the Net of slow broadband) sort of failed to mention… well… almost all of it.

So as a consumer, I disagree with FUPs in general. As an ISP/business owner, I see the point of them and that they are a necessary evil.

So what’s my comprimise?

We don’t need to eliminate FUPs completely, just for the FUPs to be fair to the consumer.

This post was originally posted as a comment to the online version of the ToI article mentioned above, but at the time of writing had not been moderated/accepted. It has been modified from it’s original form for some clarification and comic effect.

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Fact of the matter is that the so called “associations” have done precious little to lobby for the access. The biggest promise was that of unbundling the local loop; i.e. open up BSNL’s rotting rat infested telephone exchanges for others so that broadband can be rejigged. It wasn’t so. It was rejected on the grounds that it amounted to privatization of the behemoth. We are none to wiser about it. After years of facing pathetic access, we are now forced to put up with pathetic Fair Usage Policies.

Mind you. My own RTI application from TRAI has clearly shown that these so called Fair Usage Policies are “extra-constitutional” and “illegal” meaning thereby that they don’t have the official sanction. It also means that TRAI has not done anything in this regard. At present, I have been busy wrapping up my work so it leaves me little time to pursue this. Of late, I am still waiting for the appeal filed against TRAI with CIC; bump….I have no word from them.

But then how united are we to face these idiots and force to act the way consumers want them? I find the different plans bumpkin. For once, the “lowest paid plan” is the one that no one wants; specially when it comes with dastardly and bastardly speeds. The Indian mindset plays spoilsport here and I cannot really blame the so called “market forces”. Nevertheless, it is a matter of debate as to what sells and I cannot really point out a clear cut answer in the absence of solid data.

This brings forth the question of laying down fresh lines to service the market when already huge amounts of public monies have been spent over the past 50 years. Broadband is a long term planning with a huge amount of gestation built in. How many dumbfucks appreciate 1 Mbps? No one really notices the “speed” unless one wants minimal latency to connect their fancy PC’s or X Boxes. The population is minuscule.

Secondly, the recumbent operators are just not keen to service their areas. Has anyone heard of BSNL or even MTNL getting pro active to service their customers? They have the most fug ugly women to service their front desks who would make you feel as if you are interacting with your grannies. The point here is that an average run of the mill customer would hardly want to interact with a staff that is not inspired to service your needs.

So it all boils down to opening up the “exchanges” and allowing the people with gumption to lay down fat pipes and optic fiber cables to bring forth the goodies. It is not going to happen soon but then this is definitely a “suggestion”.

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In any case, I am toying with the idea of filing a second RTI application but my attention is fixated on academics and it would be impossible to keep a track of the same. In case anyone among the readers feels motivated enough, please let me know through feedback on drapuri (at) gmail (dot) com and I would happily guide the way out including help with drafting of the application.

Trust me, you’d feel very happy with the process to move the sarkari machinery in motion to respond to you. The idea is to inundate these idiots with RTI applications and make them realize that their own regulations are being flouted.

The context of the RTI application should include pointed questions towards mobile number portability, relevant orders to the same, procedure outlined, whether the telecom operators are filing compliance reports, copies of those reports, penalties to be imposed on operators who delay, cause of delays and what action has TRAI taken to ensure compliance with the erring operators.

This is important because TRAI’s own rules are being flouted, mobile number portability would have benefited the incumbent operators and the biggest losers would have been the Government Operators. With delays in capacity expansion, BSNL is already loosing market share. But then, who cares?

The entry of private operators hasn’t really shaken up the market. With perhaps per second billing as the highlight of the year, there is nothing else to speak of. In any case, it would not result in “drastic savings” because of the complex interconnect and termination charges. We don’t really know how we are being scammed.

A further highlight of the proposed RTI application can be the break up of the call rates and the scope for reduction of the same. The operators are dependent on voice revenues to a large extent; data and VAS accounts for a growing percentage of revenues, but as per media reports, not good enough to impact the bottomline in any significant manner. Therefore, the scramble is on to protect the cash cow; at any cost because the customers can be MILKED.

The big question really is: How much profit is really profitable?

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The telecom companies exist solely for making their services available and ensuring that as a customer, my services, as promised or intended work. It also means that I need an effective complaint resolution and access to the people who are concerned with running the nitty gritty of the services.

This is the idealised world.

The reality.

I have been facing a lot of hassle with the Vodafone network in my hospital premises. At first, they blamed it on the lack of an effective in building solution. Once that was installed, they are again dragging their feet and sweet talking the shit out and testing my patience time and again.

Contrast, their Zoozoo advertisements or their tagline,”happy to help”. Bullshit. I have never ever seen a company that moves slower than a glacial iceberg. If it were the likes of MTNL, I could have understood. But the entry of private operators has done nothing to address my concerns.

Further, I know not, anyone in the company. It is as if they are hiding behind a giant firewall; if you are pissed from the dumb struck morons to address your “concerns”, you have no option except to grin and bear it. For your information, the collective intelligence of the people hired as “executives” is not more than a bird brain but then if your throw peanuts, you’d get only monkeys.

The companies spend huge amounts to address the so called “after sales” but then everyone is aware of the need for roping in customers. If they grow at such a pace, the one which they claim, it would be impossible to “satisfy” each one of them unless your communication skills are par excellence and homogenous rationalised tariff plans.

I chose not to keep quiet about what I feel and set up a blog that addresses precisely these issues.

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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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iControl, .

These bozos cant maintain a website; what kind of services are they planning to offer?

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This was mandated much earlier way back in 2001; however, this was opposed by Bharti. Reliance had entered with the premise of “death of distance” and had made STD calls ridiculously cheap. At that time, Dhirubhai Ambani was still alive and Mukesh and Anil Ambani were still brothers in arms.

If Internet telephony is implemented in it’s present shape, it would see present rates crashing down to a large extent. It would give a new lease of life to ISP’s like Sify and other fringe lunatics to scale up investments. I can foresee the entry of players like Skype as well as other SIP players which rely on open standards. It’s hard not to imagine the real gains to economy as a whole and it would benefit the adoption of setting up of WiFi hotspots on a larger scale.

Carrier access codes means that one can choose his/her service provider and each of the incumbent telecom operator in fixed line business has to provide that option. It means that you can choose Airtel landline to use BSNL’s calling cards to call up you mother in law in Timbuktoo. Granted that mother in laws should remain far away without casting their evil eyes on their kids…..

The major player that’s going to get hurt is BSNL (and MTNL). Unless, they improve their services which are required in the present set up, people are going to abandon them like rats on a sinking ship.

Although, this isnt new and TRAI has probably dusted off it’s old files from it’s dingy offices, still, all compliments to them to even think of doing such a thing. This comes as a breath of fresh air indeed.

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But the message was not delivered coz apparently the support email id had no space left on the MTNL servers.

He ended up getting this message:

Recipient address: triband.helpdesk@ims-ms-daemon
Original address: triband.helpdesk@mtnl.net.in
Reason: Over quota

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This only confirms my suspicions. Airtel had used the 512k unlimited as a bait and wanted to “test market” the response to the “top up” offers. This, in my opinion, only serves to entince more people towards the unlimited offerings. I feel that the current price for 1 Mbps is over inflated and it should be brought down to about 1000/- price band. Trust me, the whole existing subscriber base of MTNL would want to sever off their private parts to get hooked on to something like that. As if it really makes a difference….

Airtel has the moolah and they have the network. They can easily take the initiative and soft launch it. As I had mentioned before, word of mouth publicity would do more good. They can upscale their networks in response to the demand, schedule customers (like me) who deserve more bandwidth because suddenly I have discovered that You Tube videos stream so smoothly on the new bandwidth and it has been a discovery of all sorts watching those re runs of Tom and Jerry cartoons.

If only these morons listened….they’d get a very positive feedback from this blog. I promise

Of course, the scheme gets extended to whole of the country where Airtel has it’s presence.

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I feel that the “top up” thingy should be declared illegal because you have two plans running concurrently offering the same speeds. They should migrate the existing customers to the present price plan because it makes no sense to pay higher prices for something that doesnt cost much. No one is willing to look into this because the company and the regulator seem to share the same relationship as a client and a prostitute. As long as the right money comes in, the whore mongering goes on with everyone looking at the other way. Unfortunate.

Either way, I have been arguing that the current prices donot reflect the existing price slabs across the world. Most of the major telcos in the developing world have shifted away from the 256k plans and have focussed on higher bandwidth options. Further, the prices across the spectrum are way to expensive in terms of purchasing parity; which effectively means that there is an open loot going on.

Airtel can easily slash down the prices for access; offer unlimited plans with bundling of voice calls and along with that create demand to cater to the new customers. Airtel still advertises mobiles as a lifestyle product; it should be placed as something utilatarian instead of being aspirational. Thats the whole irony of it. Dimwits have access to bucket loads of cash to burn.

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A quick low down of the ensuing events. According to the norms, the spectrum would be issued to the companies who garner the maximum share of the subscribers. This means that apart from the bloated number of subscribers, the whole mobile user base is a BIG suspect. The specturm wars broke out in the public because Raja wanted to ration the scarce resource and act God. There are often shispers of BIG money floating around but then that isn’t the focus of this write up here. At first, the government decided to relax the norms for spectrum allocation. In the meantime, it allocated 10 Mhz of “free” spectrum to the two upgly sisters, BSNL/MTNL. This was challanged by COAI, the motley coalition of the private telecom operators in TDSAT, which is tribunal body to decide the disputes. To add to the confusion in the midst was the huge number of applications that waited to get their turn for spectrum allocation. DoT decided to issue letters of intent to the new players.

In the meantime, the media jumped in the fray and raised the issue of 3G licences and there were various interpretations of the original licencing norms. Government of India thrives in controversy and no wonder that it was very happy to roll in the mud. The motley association was split right through the middle and they could not get their act quite right. After a couple of days, COAI made quiet noises about “settling” the 3G row.

Now comes the icing on the cake. Reliance got an entry in the GSM club by paying a paltry sum of 1600+crores and got their CDMA licence converted to some kind of a “universal access” crap. Whatever that means. Reliance’s entry in the cosy club and hence the scarce spectrum being gifted on the platter was too much for the association to digest. Anil Ambani and the rest exchanged verbal duels clothed in their gobbledegook. In other words, both the parties were fingering each other. When the war of words went out of hand, the DoT wanted to play Godfather and summoned the chiefs of all the telecom companies to “thrash out a solution”.

Raja realised that the game was clearly up and set up a shadow boxing competition. In effect, to announce as to who is the boss. Since there was no consensus on the telecom chief’s meet, he decided to get the PMO involved and had a smiling manmoron to back up his decision.

Thus ended the saga of the “spectrum wars”; the last word isn’t written as yet. I would wait for further news to unfold in the near future. Nevertheless, the mess persists and the ultimate looser is the public exchequer. Without going in detail about the merits of the case, I believe that this telecom mess would tangle itself like a hydra headed monster. No respite!

As usual, the watchdogs were quiet and it was only Business Standard who spoke out at length about the mess around here.

Phew!

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Novatium does away with the basic CPU as you know of. All the computing takes place at the central server which serves as a hard drive. So in effect you just connect the system to broadband and access the web. This makes sense for India because this model is based on sound economic fundamentals. I am glad that Novatium is getting the required media attention; for long they have been languishing in the background. If I am not mistaken, it’s run by Rajesh Jain, the guy who made crores after he sold his portal to Sify for a whopping 400+ crores during the height of dot com boom. It’s another story that Sify turned his magic into a wasteland.

He chose to slowly invest his money in ventures like these and runs a popular blog called as Emergic. Even though it runs on yucky Movable type platform, I still enjoy some of his write ups.

Novatium would surely be a project to watch out for. I really hope that BSNL picks up this idea and rolls out a nationwide service. Telecom operators would then become true blue service providers.

I hope that they iron out the chinks like uptime of the availability of the platform. I assume that the service is also prone for breakdown if the telephone goes kaput. MTNL is known for it’s customer apathy and I dare not venture in it’s smelly offices. Further, Novatium would have to recoup their investments. Interestingly, they offering a choice between Linux and Windows platform. If linux can get a mainstream exposure, I am sure that it would do a world of good to them.

Some one from Ubuntu India should contact these guys to roll out preloaded Linux boxes. It is a breeze to learn the new desktops and for a person who has never been exposed to computers, it would be the right thing to do; unless one is forced to unlearn crappy windows and learn Linux from a scratch.

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