The entire article can be viewed here; although I don’t wish to skip over the juiciest parts (and something that I have always mentioned in this blog that is patently wrong with the auctions and the way it has been handled).

On First Come First Served Basis:

The Committee note that the First-Come-First-Served (FCFS) basis for the issue of Licences and Allocation of Spectrum has been followed by the Department on the argument that the announced UASL guidelines have made it open for new licences to be issued on continuous basis. The Committee’s scrutiny of the records reveal that in the Basic Service Licences guidelines, there is a reference to FCFS but nowhere in the UASL guidelines, the term FCFS has found a mention implying thereby it has no sanctity. In fact, on 24th November, 2003, the then Minister of Communications and IT had approved the Department’s proposal to give licence Spectrum on FCFS basis, but it was not codified in the UASL guidelines. Thus, there has been no such legally established principle as ‘FCFS’, at best it can be termed as a prescription to be followed for grant of licence/Spectrum…….

On Role of Media:

The Committee note that the brazen irregularities in the allotment of 2G spectrum and UAS licences were unravelled by some investigative journalists much before the Radia tapes came into the public domain. A journalist who played a stellar role in exposing the irregularities, on being asked about the sources of his information, replied that the information was collected through the RTIs and from some public-spirited insiders…..

Presumptive Loss:

….Intriguingly, neither the DoT nor the TRAI has quantified the precise loss. Unfortunately, the DoT instead of admitting an unconscionable act, advanced the plea that theoretical exercises based on economic modeling are fraught with simplistic assumptions and that no methodology can be suggested by them to calculate the loss…..The Committee feel that giving dual technology licence to the CDMA operators and new UAS licences in 2007-08 at a price determined in 2001 was not only imprudent but also smacks of a design.

Shortcomings in the Implementation aspect:

….While the first phase was implemented, the second phase was conveniently and intentionally, as subsequent events substantiate, overlooked. In the process, devising an efficient allocation formula for Spectrum alongwith an appropriate price remained unachieved as delinking the price of Spectrum from the issue of licences was given a go bye, disregarding the Cabinet decision. The Committee are deeply distressed that due to violation of the Cabinet decision and as a consequence of such deliberate omission, the issue of UAS license and allocation of Spectrum in 2007-08 at the price discovered in 2001 caused a staggering, but wholly avoidable, revenue loss…..

The Committee also desire that the price of Spectrum be delinked from the issue of licences without further delay and seek explanations as to why this important decision has not been implemented as yet…..

Role and Responsibility of TRAI:

The Committee note that the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) are not binding upon the Central Government. But it is mandatory for the Government to seek recommendation of the TRAI in respect of matters pertaining to the need and timing for introduction of new service providers and terms and conditions of licence to a service provider. But the Committee are surprised to note that while seeking TRAI’s recommendation on 13 April, 2007 on various issues, the DoT did not seek recommendations on grant of new licences despite the mandatory requirement. Even though the decisions of the Government is final whether to accept or reject the TRAI’s recommendation, not seeking such recommendations at all speaks volumes for the DoTs malafide designs to circumvent the established provisions in the TRAI Act..

So now we know that TRAI basically is a useless toothless regulator.

But TRAI is not above all. So read the following:

Besides, the Committee find TRAI’s flip-flop in its recommendations also contributed towards the Department’s arbitrary and unilateral decisions. For example, in 2003 TRAI recommended that as the existing players have to improve the efficiency of utilization of Spectrum and if Government ensures availability of additional Spectrum, then within the existing licensing regime, they may introduce additional players through a multistage bidding process as was followed in the case of introduction of the fourth cellular operator.

The bad news:

One aspect that engages the attention of the Committee is the fact that worldwide, especially in the developed countries, the licensing and Spectrum related functions are actually performed by the Regulators and not by the Government unlike in India. The Committee consider such a practice as one of the main reasons for the DoT’s arbitrary decisions in dealing with the consultation process with the Authority.

The big players have engaged the Department of Telecom and the TRAI executives get exemplary post retirement benefits as fancy board members. Of course, they are there to liaise with the existing bureaucrats setting up huge questions on conflict of interests. I really don’t know whether these clauses are in built in their “rules” but if you look at the RTI applications to make their assets public, these faceless bastards need to be more accountable. Not all of them are like that but the blackest of the black sheep are bringing a huge shame to rest of the community.

Pathetic. Ours is totally a banana republic.

On 3G Spectrum (Which I personally feel has been “over-inflated”):

The Committee are happy to note that the auction of 3G Spectrum through an open and transparent bidding process has established the true value of the finite scare resource. However, as apprehension has been raised at many quarters that by paying such hefty amount to get 3G Spectrum, the successful bidders might pass on the burden to the consumers, the Committee impress upon the TRAI to keep a watch on the development in this regard and protect the interest of the consumer in tandem with the DoT.

Hope you are feeling bad enough by reading this sorry state of affairs.

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I usually refrain from making any political posts here because this is not the right platform. However, I do assume that readers have some basic iota of knowledge about polity and make genuine efforts to seek out information. Admittedly, the blog roll has been trimmed down over the past few months but is an enough indication to seek news from alternative sources. Hence, I also rely heavily on different opinions to balance out the events as they unfold or else the media, in cahoots with the powers, is able to pull wool over the eyes.

As I have mentioned earlier, one of the major limitations of blogs is it’s discovery of content. Unless, it is spread far and wide, it would remain hidden. A vast legion and an army of morons descends on Twitter and Facebook which makes an engaging discussion, nearly impossible. I do miss the earlier interaction with like minded folks on the forums but right now it is swamped with idiots; the same ones who shouldn’t have populated the earth in the first place.

Nevertheless, first the 2G scam. It was actually “unleashed” by Congress as a careful calculated move to deflect attention from Commonwealth Games fiasco and overt attention from Gandhis who have actually benefitted from the windfall. It is not possible to point in the exact figure but we can be assured that it is a tidy sum stashed away in havens and far from the public scrutiny. Another calculated move was to discredit the ruling DMK regime and force them on the backfoot for poll understandings and fine tune CBI to extract maximum political mileage. When it was clear that this has not ensured the required “effect” i.e. people rising in revolt, Raja was held and packed away to Tihar Jail.

Although, it sounds like a conspiracy theory, any political observer worth his/her salt would not deny the way events unfolded. In a place like Tamil Nadu, where Congress by itself would not have been able to make any dent (given it’s near absence and lack of charisma in Southern States), DMK is still the best bet. So after wresting the key seat sharing agreement, DMK and Congress are still in the alliance and would face the electorate together. It’s surprising, that despite the “North Indian’s face” in North, it is aligning itself with a party that has steadfastly kept “anti north indian” stance. In short, regional chauvinism reigns surpreme and no one questions them.

This was later followed by a stalled parliament with a constitution of a PAC and a JPC; statuatory bodies under Parliament of India which is oddly making some news off and on and was agreed to after supposedly considerable lobbying efforts by the opposition. It’s wisdom may well be questioned; as far as I am aware of, it is a fact finding mission but does not prosecute. This again has ensured that public attention is deflected away from the massive commonwealth games fiasco; there is no iota of doubt that Kalmadi and his team are mere fronts for people in power to siphon off public money.

Now comes the “lokpal bill” and the balding gandhian asshole called as Hazare. The timing of his plank as “anti-corruption” is a huge suspect. But first, a reality check on the lokpal bill or what has been offered to the Government:

Jan Lokpal Bill is open ended and confers unlimited powers. So it goes without saying that selecting the Lok Pal Members is the single most important task.  There are no checks and balances at all in the bill that would make it idiot member proof.   In other words, if the mainstream institutions have been compromised, there is NOTHING in the bill that would prevent the Lokpal from being compromised too.  It gets worse because of two reasons.

1. The mainstream institutions (CVC, CBI, CAG, etc) can be turned around by people power every 5 years. That it doesnt seem to happen is due to there not being enough free agent voters in the system.  We can hope for a 20-25% increase in free agent voters which will straighten these institutions in short time.
2. A compromised Lokpal will wreak havoc and lay to waste the other institutions. There is no chance of getting them voted out.

The timing is circumspect.

Sandhya Jain hits the nail right on the head: (emphasis mine throughout).

Anna Hazare’s so-called fast-unto-death is questionable for its anti-democratic disdain for elected government and people’s representatives. The timing is equally suspect – right after the adjournment of Parliament after passing the Union Budget. It may be recalled that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was forced to gift Rs. 40,000/- crores to the leaky MREGA project favoured by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her unelected friends in the National Advisory Council; his attempts to curtail this hole in the exchequer enraged her.

As if on cue, Hazare, NAC cronies, Rockefeller Foundation-funded Magsaysay Award winners, and other usual suspects, ganged up against the besieged prime minister…..If laws are to be adopted and enacted in this manner, do we need either government or Parliament?

My point is that he is instigating the middle class intelligentsia that comes to hear him at Jantar Mantar – and neither he nor any of his allies is a grassroots mass leader ……..he moots an unelected oligarchy. This does not bode well for the nation or the society.

Sandhya Jain goes on to write:
…..the idea that Magsaysay Award-winning Indians should figure in the Lokpal selection panel. This stinks of an American hand….. we shall never know what kind of private networking could take place in government and bureaucracy via its favoured persons, to further Rockefeller interests.

India’s high profile elites derive status from the international NGO cocktail circuit. Their insatiable quest for funds and glory makes them adopt ideas and concepts without examining their validity in an Indian context. As they are very conscious of their elite status, they have unacceptable contempt for the people and their elected representatives.

We cannot endorse these non-accountable and glittering Western satellites.

Compare and contrast with what Times of India’s Shalini Singh has to write about it.

Although she rallies against the CBI for filing improper chargesheet, she praises Hazare for his stand.

The CBI’s latest chargesheet in the 2G scam investigation…… Timid and short on detail,it serves more as a lesson for students of law and police academies on how not to make a chargesheet.

…..clean chit to the Prime Minister (4 pages), the attorney general (2 pages) and the Tatas (7 pages).

The 60-page final report does not have a single line to prove corruption nor does it even remotely mention the evidence….

Shalini writes further:

…. it is not keen on fulfilling its own mandate of a statutory investigating agency, the CBI has assumed the role of an auditor instead. This is an important move, which helps create a mid-point of Rs 30,984.55 crore between the CAG’s Rs 1.76 lakh crore revenue loss figure, which is accurately based on TRAI recommendations equating 2G spectrum with 3G spectrum, and telecom minister Kapil Sibal’s irreverent and indeed outright frivolous “zero loss” premise.

Anna Hazare’s agitation is timely, appropriate and critical. The CBI making a joke of the 2G scam investigation despite the Supreme Court’s best efforts shows how desperately India needs anti-corruption laws and institutions like the Lokpal to bring in the changes that Hazare and others in civil society seek.

I haven’t seen the chargesheet (and neither I am a legal expert in these matters) so it’s hard to express solidiarity with Shalini’s assertions. It is also pertinent to note that she has been writing about the 2G scam over the period of time, so it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. I don’t want to write anything else about TOI because they have a history of suing independent bloggers and I don’t want a lame dick dingbat to send me a legal notice.

Jokes apart, the present course of events is muddy. No one can claim authority but everything is weighed and calculated to make matters worse for spirited and ordinary citizens. It is difficult to separate the chaff from the grain and interestingly, some of the mainstream publications in English Language Media have been critical of this balding asshole. However, its not really surprsing because the ELM (English Language Media); specifically the newspapers tend to toe the press releases issued by the Government of India.

With these limitations (of the blogging platform) and the din of thousands of idiots collectively crowing as representative of the civil society, it’s impossible to break through the logjam. Still, I seriously hope that sane people in this country get enough ejection velocity to get out of this nation for good because we have turned into a banana republic. It’s bad enough. Really.

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Image via Wikipedia

I have explored various other aspects of mobile internet in recent times. It would not be worthwhile to cry myself hoarse about the pathetic mobile access in India (which I have done repeatedly) but lets take a look at how the platforms are evolving based on the Mobile version of “broadband”.

Unfortunately, this write up draws inspiration from the western markets because the traditional mobile industry in India has not matured beyond the typical value added services of ring tones. I find it really hard to swallow if someone points me towards the mobile “games”. Yes, there are enough idiots to crow about the viability of mobile games as a money spinner but we could safely ignore them.Including the myriad “research firms” that pay money to get “quoted” in mainstream Indian press and financial dailies.However, it could be different if we have something like “Indian version” of Angry Birds. (Disclosure: I have that on my Android handset and ABSOLUTELY love it. With their shift towards in-game payment options), they would be justifying the huge surge of interest from venture capitalists.

This brings Indian media into picture. Over the past few weeks, I have been interacting with some people regarding “upgradation” of their web sites. They are badly coded examples of the worst case scenario of “Indian outsourcing”. I have tried, in recent times, to make a shift towards Drupal and understand that it is a sum of all aspects that needs to work in different browsers with cross platform compatibility. Unfortunately, they don’t realize the importance of having a proper mobile access stripped of advertisements.

Hence, a “mature” access device is unlikely to make a dent in India. The success of iPad hinges more from how Jobs has been able to “distort the reality” with his marketing gimmicks and how the whole ecosystem has been designed to keep the customers locked in. However, given the form factor, Jobs has been able to hit the sweet spot; a readable touch screen with mobile access.

There are people who swear by Flipboard but I haven’t really found a good RSS reader with capability of semantic linkages. Zeta has been launched recently with a lot of promise and cluster fuck advertising but since I don’t have an iPad, it is unlikely I would do any kind of a comparison between Zeta and Flipboard. I am stuck to Google Reader because thats unfortunately, the only in-browser app that works (others are plain useless with perhaps a bit of exception to RSS Owl or Blog Bridge).

Murdoch had launched “The Daily” with a lot of hype; but a few weeks later, there are people leaving him away in droves.There has been a lot of explaining behind this because arguably the fundamental reasoning behind iPad apps is flawed. For those who are watching the media space (and betting on Indian version of tablets) are going to be highly disappointed but well, they are unlikely to invest in resources which cannot be monetised (given the huge levels of piracy and nearly absent mechanisms of micropayments in this technology backwaters of the world).

So this effectively boils down to lack of developer interest in creating applications (hey what would you get with a huge army of morons and script kiddies who can’t even code a single line of software), lack of venture capital and inability to sustain a start up. (I strongly suggest that you read Shyam’s write up on the same issue). To quote selectively:

The main problem is that the Indian market for digital goods and services is tiny. In a non-existent market, neither product finesse nor pricing can make much of a difference. There is barely enough size in the digital domain to sustain large profitable companies.

Ironically, mobile companies are the only ones to push for content. However, therein comes the “platform interest”. Would you invest money in something that works across all handsets with rival operators? Or would you invest in something that would be locked up for your own network alone? Either way, the thorny issue does not yield any straight answers.

Hence, I find the obessession with pumping up digital content a tad boring. Not because I don’t want to consume but the options are sorely limited. Eve for 3G access, companies forbid “tethering” (not that no one cares a rats ass fuck about it) but they expect the 3g phones to have gigantic screens that would solve the issue. This would also explain that one reason why the prices are so high. Apart from the sunk costs, most of the operators are well aware that Internet access on mobiles would broadly mirror the broadband access on land lines i.e. a huge mass of zombified idiots would access only Yahoo or Facebook. It cannot be wished away because they would only cater to the mass of idiots without bothering about the “outliers” like us because there is no “real space” created.

No one wants to spend money to “change the habits” for content access. They would rather fill up the channels (and “news”) with “Bollywood flotsam” and fake celebrities prancing around either naked or raved out with hollow sockets floating around in public perception. (Okay well, I am biased since I find most of them really retarded).

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The fact that this is 2011 and iTunes customers still can’t use their music purchases freely across devices is rather staggering, especially considering that “buy once, download as many times as you’d like” has become fairly standard elsewhere not only without the world ending — but with great financial success. It’s also amusing that as most news outlets cover Apple’s efforts, they ignore the fact that music pirates have enjoyed this kind of freedom for years. Apparently, you’re not supposed to talk about the fact that legitimate services have to compete with piracy.
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Rajeev Srinivasan has a list of the write ups detailing this “scandal” of monumental proportions. It is rumored to be worth…hold your breath….22 billion dollars!

Imagine the kind of money, if invested in broadband or community Wifis would truly make us a “superpower” indeed!

I quote the relevant text (emphasis mine).

Documents available with The Pioneer show that Central Bureau of Investigation DIG Vineet Agarwal had on November 16, 2009, sought call detail records of Nira Radia from Director General of Income Tax (Investigation) Milap Jain. “It has been reliably learnt that certain middlemen, including one Ms Nira Radia of M/s Noesis Consultancy, were actively involved in the above-mentioned (spectrum scam) criminal conspiracy,” Agarwal’s letter to Jain, seeking the detailed call records, stated.

On November 20, 2009, as per Jain’s instructions, Joint Director of Income Tax Ashish Abrol provided the details of conversation between Radia and key players in the spectrum scam, including A Raja.

“There are some direct conversations between Ms Radia and the Telecom Minister. In some other conservations, Ms Radia boasts of having helped some of the telecom operators in their efforts to obtain licences/spectrums. Ms Radia has also been in regular touch with Shri Chandolia,” confirmed Abrol to the CBI. RK Chandolia was Raja’s private secretary during the time of spectrum allocation and has since been elevated as an economic adviser in the Department of Telecommunication.

Nira Radia is the person who is under scanner for lobbying in the Ministry of Telecom.

Radia is an NRI, who landed in India in early 2000 for some liaison work for aviation companies. Of the nine companies that benefited from the dubious spectrum allocation by Raja, the CBI found that four companies were “serviced” by Radia.

Highly-placed sources said the CBI was denied permission by top authorities to interrogate Radia even though the telephone intercepts clearly exposed her role in the scam, which cost an estimated Rs 1,00,000 crore to the exchequer. “There are some direct conversations between Ms Radia and the Telecom Minister. In some other conservations, Ms Radia boasts of having helped some of the telecom operators in their efforts to obtain licences/spectrums.

CBI is now probing the scam. But then, CBI has been used as an instrument to intimidate rather than be of any “benefit”.

The idea is to screw up the alliance partners and make them more amenable to persuasion in the electoral political compulsions. Everyone was AWARE of the “scam”, the likes of Swam Telecom (promoted by Anil Ambani) who made a windfall fortune and and Unitech which erstwhile had interests ONLY in real estate.

….real estate companies Swan and Unitech bagged the spectrum license at a throw away price and they off-loaded their shares at a whopping price to multi-national telecom giants. The Swan Telecom bagged the license for Rs.1537 crore for operating in 13 circles. Within months (September) it sold its 45 per cent of shares to Etisalat, the telecom giant in UAE for 900 million US dollars (Approximately Rs.4500 crore).

Similarly, the Unitech, another real estate company too entered into a bumper deal, without investing anything in telecom infrastructure. The company got license to operate in 22 circles for Rs.1651 crore. Within weeks, it sold 60 per cent shares for Rs.6120 crores to the Norwegian company Telenor, who is currently a major telecom player in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

More here.

This is just another media circus. Raja is just another player in the game. We are all suckers AS USUAL.

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I remember the days of pathetic 56 kbps access on the telephone modem. The dial up access was atrociously expensive, the lines faced frequent disconnections and the overall experience was laced with frustrations. I writhed my hands in despair when I heard about Napster allowing unrestricted exchange of music residing on the hard drives. While I don’t condone this (for legal reasons) but it allowed unrestricted exchange of music one never knew ever existed! Napster died a horrible death due to unrelenting legal challenges by MPAA.

MPAA is a quasi union to protect the interests of the content creators. US has been a test bed of the way this contentious issue has evolved over the years. The MPAA has garnered a lot of bad press from the people who fuel the peer to peer networks. There has been a dissent generated from the ISP’s who claim that this kind of traffic chokes their network and cite FUD campaigns to announce the imminent breakdown of Internet; that the bandwidth would soon run out with the kind of content that is being shared.

In the Web 2.0 arena, interestingly, none of the players are making serious money but follow the basic “Christy” method of “harvesting of souls“. Content is created to dumb down the masses in name of entertainment and people hooked on to the “opium of masses” (based on the loose misrepresentation of Marx). Frankly, content creation involves mega budgets and creators look for perpetual “evergreening” of “copyright” in order to milk whatever is worth it.

In this scenario, it is a double pronged attack on the people who share something that is inaccessible or content that has been blocked because of complex copyright issues. For example, a movie having a theatrical release in US quickly goes through it’s DVD sales and then released “worldwide”. Peer to peer networks (Torrents or it’s variants) has changed the game altogether. The moment a DVD is released, it is “ripped” and uploaded for all. The “seeders” abound for the “leechers” and the cycle continues.

The speeds are an issue worldwide. Primarily, the governments have encouraged faster speeds by tax breaks and other incentives to promote digital lifestyles and the positive spinoffs from that. Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea and Japan have lead the way. Recently, Australia announced it”s grand plan to push rural broadband impetus. US has had an acrimonious debate about the role of FCC (their version of TRAI) and the paltry definition of broadband access at 256kbps. Despite the intensive lobbying, nothing really has come out of it.

Piracy has kept pace with the “increasing” speeds so as to say. Legislation has not kept pace with the attempts to thwart this growth. Europe has seen some activity which led to confiscation of Pirate Bay servers and as a result the public rose in revolt against this “misstep” and formed a “Pirate party”. Interestingly, it even managed to win at the hustings and got a seat in the parliament.

I feel that “rooting” out the piracy is impossible. If Governments find means to thwart Internet access or even “slow down speeds”, there are people to bypass these issues in the name of unfettered access.

I don’t endorse piracy in the present form (to be on the right side of law) but there is an inherent need for people to share. This basic impulse cannot be wished away for times to come.

Broadband is going to change the equations in the way we connect. I don’t have any teary eyed dreams of a “global connected village” though but it’s a good feeling that resources can be shared by one and all.

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

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

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

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

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I believe that the ISP’s who lease out bandwidth and then resell the same under their own brands would be the hardest hit. This means your Sify Broadband and it’s spawns. The increased licencing fees would have to be passed on to customers; remember folks, the same pissed off people who are already reeling under unreliable services.

This would only serve to alienate the computing masses and perhaps drive more customers towards category A providers like BSNL. Is this a ploy to gain the critical mass? This is what we could never know. Since Reliance is planning for a nationwide roll out, it would want to target the customers suffering from Sify and the only way to do that is to create conditions to make it unviable for the small town player to provide services on an even platform. While these could be perfect conspiracy theories, it holds valid on this account, in my opinion.

More details on the Slimes of India.

Internet PC to PC calls would be specially targetted at. With increasing broadband penetration- well there are certain number of subscribers for sure, they have discovered the joys of using Skype for extended chat sessions. This makes it a loss making proposition for the entrenched telecom operators whose massive investments in traditional phone lines would be hurt. A classical case of the industry opposing the roll out of a new technology that could benefit the masses.

What could at best be offered (and TRAI could have easily done) was to allow these competing technologies in the market and give the freedom of choice to customers. We could have easily seen the likes of Vonage in India, Skype like thingy on Wifi hotspots and extended telephone lines connected to PC’s or Broadband plug in points. All these benefits have been swiped under the carpet.

The ISP Association is rightly crying wolf over the loss of oppurtunity. But then, what have they done to improve services in their own backyard? Nothing. I remember the time when I was desperate to contact the association so that they could collectively define what broadband could be. No answer. This is what you get when you ignore the power of the blog!

Jokes apart, it would be terrible in the current scenario if the proposals get accepted by Department of Telecom in the present shape. The small town charlie would have to pay higher access fees for his simple joys of seeing two people fornicating.

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Broadband’s fat pipes would ensure this to come true. With the rapid integration of the services, Broadband is slowly moving in our lives and we are truly becoming integrated. While this may be a heavy demand on our resources and short attention spans, I am not going in those details. Imagine a cell phone streaming the live updated messages (possible by Blackberry), the RSS feeds that you have subscribed to (on your cell possible via Opera Mini), free access to the ubiquitous Gmail (on WAP), your own personalised TV channels (on Myth TV) and the power of all pervading Linux boxes powering those nifty details. (While there are many other alternative options to Myth TV, I would ONLY endorse Open Source applications. Opera is the ONLY closed source application that gets endorsed- for one simple reason. They have created a viable model based on closed source while being fully committed to the idea of Open Standards for web as well as software).

The so called next wave of “web 2.0” is for real and would be powered eminently by Broadband; because that is the only way content can be streamed and reached out to you. Arguably, I still have to invest time and resources in setting up a permanent kind of an integrated web page but when I look back, the whole services I subscribe too are way too scattered. I should be able to blog, check feeds, work on word processors et al from a single interface.

Broadband alone has made this effort worthwhile.

Flashback to 1996 when the TCP/IP accounts were first opened up for the public at a princely sum of Rs 10,000. People had fallen over for the “cyber cafe” craze. There were dudes who put up ancient Pentiums in five star hotels, skimpily clad females serving coffee and making some impression on the “clients” who came on in;some lucky guys probably banged them for whatever their buck was worth. (It used to cost over a 1000 bucks per hour-hey to surf online!). Things have changed to an extent that opening up a Cyber cafe isn’t a worthwhile proposition now at all. For all that is worth it, the current slump does not justify for the break even earnings too. No. You would not find skimpily clad females either. Move on with life!

Broadband has clearly changed the rules of the game. I remember the times when couple of my friends used to search around for underground network guys to source their software needs. Or just plain pirated films. Or depend heavily on the “freebies” handed out by the computer magazines. Which incidentally boosted their sales for otherwise totally insipid content. We used to have a massive collection of useless software et al. Broadband has totally changed over the rules of the game. Axxo rules for the movies. Torrents/ Limewire has made the software piracy a nightmare for the peddlers which again is a no brainer. Underground piracy still thrives; nevetheless it has not made much impact in the hinterland where the demand for smut movies is always there.

(The links are only suggestive about the available means for accessing content and I DONOT ENDORSE them in ANY MANNER whatsoever).

Not to mention the “podcasts” and viral videos. They are a swell and we just might be seeing the return of the one minute movie formats. You Tube is powering much of this phenomenon.

In all Broadband would radically alter the rules of the game. However, uninformed as the Indian customer is, it would be time before be could free ourselves from the clutches of the assinine load limits and ISP’s dictating the way we access content/ services. Think about net neutrality(1, 2, 3,4 ); something that I feel needs to be debated across a wider spectrum.

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This is a term coined by Columbia University Law Professor Tim Wu which orginally identified network bias toward or against particular classes of application or providers of content or services. According to Wu’s analysis, the Internet is not neutral but should strive to be. He points to bias in TCP against real-time applications to support this point.

In simple lay man’s terms it means that as networks proliferate to higher speeds, the content service providers could act as “choke points” to throttle the flow of information. As the mainstream media and the telecom giants converge, often with malicious intent in the name of business interests, the desire to control the flow of ideas would be irresistible.

In effect, this would be, what I call as “Google Effect”; they would seek to lord over the content that you and me seek to inform/ entertain/ consume et al.

This is a far fetched “conspiracy theory” though. I would like to link to two interesting thoughts on the same issue. First one comes from David Sugar, who writes in for Free Software Magazine. He says: (emphasis mine)

In the beginning, the internet was a peering arrangement where all nodes were treated equally, and anyone could interconnect from any one node to another. This was the network of peering built upon public standards that anyone could freely implement…The internet eventually spread to the general population through modem dialup. This changed the internet from being a semi-closed environment connecting just a few hundred or thousand commercial and government institutions into something interconnecting millions. The speeds and bandwidth of analog modem dialup naturally limited what individuals could do over dialup links, but outside of technological limitations, the internet imposed no additional discriminatory practices nor did those ISPs who offered direct internet access through dialup at the time.

With the widespread introduction of broadband, over cable and DSL, came the first real discrimination on the internet. Just when finally there was enough easily deliverable bandwidth to go around to enable the millions of dialup users to more directly participate on the internet, it was closed off from them. At the physical layer, peering was closed by artificial uplink “bandwidth caps”, which restricted their ability to produce and distribute. At the application layer, broadband providers actively discriminate by blocking certain ports and services, particularly in regard to email. At the legal layer, broadband service agreements offered through monopoly telco and cable companies restrict what services and applications people can run.

Can we see a hint of what BSNL does to the “broadband” subscribers?

Robert Cringely has a different take on the net neutrality issue:

Those opposing Net Neutrality have in mind VoIP, and nothing but VoIP. Those in favor of Net Neutrality seem to think it means equal treatment under the Internet, which it doesn’t really….The Net Neutrality issue rests, in part, on the concept of the Internet as a “best effort” network. Best effort, in the minds of the Internet Engineering Task Force, means something slightly different than we are being told in the general press. It means that all packets are treated equally poorly in that no particular efforts are made to ensure delivery. The Net, itself, performs no packet life-support function. This is in keeping with the concept of the Internet as a dumb network. So even in cases of transport protocols that DO attempt to perform reliable transport (protocols like TCP), those recovery measures are negotiated between the server and the client, not by the network that connects them, simple as that.

Robert details about the various issues that determine the transfer of the packets from one node to another; from one server to another. The final nail in the coffin is about VoIP.

Where this Net Neutrality issue will hit home is for Voice over IP telephone service, which becomes pitiful if there is too much latency. That’s what this is all about, folks: VoIP and nothing else. The telcos want to use it to keep out the Vonages, Skypes, and Packet8s, and the cable companies do, too. It is a $1 trillion global business, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the ISPs will do anything to own it.

It all boils down to using the networks to bypass Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) and hurting their revenues via VoIP. No doubt, this is BIG bad news for the telecom operators as far as big paying customers are concerned. For individual subscribers, this has to reach any critical mass before it starts pinching them in any real manner. The way Broadband is spreading (at a slow pace indeed, despite the claims to the contrary), I don’t see any wild fire growth of VoIP in the future. However, point is that this issue of Net Neutrality is relevant to us for the same reason as it is to any other developed nation. VoIP is being embraced by companies across the board to cut down on the operational costs.

Interestingly, there are assinine restrictions in the licensing norms which would make it prohibitively expensive for the likes of Skype to enter Indian market. The exact details elude me though; Skype is restricted to a few thousand (lucky) Indians though.

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Triple play carrying voice/ data and video is a common place. Yet, an average Joe like us uses Internet for checking email/ casual surfing. How much speed is the right speed?

I am reminded of the billionaire’s famous words,”640k ought to be enough”. As the things stand today it is increasingly clear that we need more and more computing power. For example, the increasing complexity of the games needs more RAM and processing power. (I’d settle in for a console though).

Hence, it would be difficult to quantify the need for speeds. People would put it to diverse uses as they deem it to be fit. Unless of course the content chokes the access. This only means that telcos would have to scale up bandwidth manifold. Which I don’t see as “happening”.

In the comments section on CNET wirte up (which I came across the link via Digg), the whole thing seemed like a conspiracy by the entrenched telecom operators. How far is this true is not known; but they do hire publicists in the media to “educate” customers. However, with rampant file sharing, the ISP’s would be forced to cut back on access speeds. Something that BSNL/ MTNL or anyone else is damned scared of if this trend catches on in India. We are speaking of a handful of minorty (in customer’s terms) who is into hacking firmware for port forwarding et al.

Hence, this seems to be a debate between the classical haves (as customers) and have nots (as telecom operators). Who wins the final round? This time would tell.

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Bollywood is the informal name given to the popular Mumbai-based Hindi language film industry in India. The name is a conflation of Bombay, the old name of Mumbai, and Hollywood, the center of the United States film industry. Though some purists deplore the name (arguing that it makes the industry look like a poor cousin to Hollywood), it seems likely to persist and now has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Whatever the purists might say, Hindi film industry typically sees huge amounts of money being traded every year. Of course, there would be many claimaints to the ever increasing pie. Given the fact that Indians seem to have a fixation for “song-n-dance” sequences; we all seem to lap it up with gusto.

However, more than that, I would focus on content delivery. Every year we get to see an astounding 1000 films made every year. ( Thats a rough estimate). Most of them are B grade stuff- that you would like to be caught dead watching. The others, so called big budget productions, have a lot of money riding on the “appeal” of the stars.

In recent times, producers are increasingly turning towards advertisers to sell the film as a commodity. The whole package is splashed across hoardings, multiplexes and increasingly we get to see tie ups with mobile phone companies for ring tones.

The newer content delivery is going to be Broadband.

The so called “triple play” with telephone, video and cable intertwined would soon start streaming across homes. Yet, is this model going to be a revenue earner?

The telecom companies are hoping so. With voice margins falling, it doesn’t make any sense to stick on the same revenue model. Data is the way to go. However, with the pathetic infrastructure and REAL last mile hassles, it would take time to bridge the “digital” divide in the near future.

Still, the broadband can allow pay per view or downloads based on rentals. Just like you would rent it from a video store. They could either stream the video, a narrow possibility because the technology isn’t really refined. Then of course, the telecom companies would have to invest in heavy bandwidth to individual homes. The other way could be via peer to peer file sharing; if it is legalised in India.

Whatever the distribution model maybe, it would definitely help to curb piracy and scale up serious money in unorganised Bollywood. All that matters is the way they scale up.

A potential hindrance seems to be huge funds being raised and lined up for multiplexes. I feel that broadband may not yet threaten the traditional cinemas; rather the two may co exist side by side. Still, the future seems to be exciting; even if the content is seriously dumbed down.

In this context, Reliance’s acquistion of Adlabs needs to be seen. Reliance has it’s aces up it’s sleeve. They would go to any extent to capture the market by virtue of being late entrants. Infact none of the other two pan Indian players have their plans ready for content delivery. BSNL is dilly dallying for content; Airtel as usual would scale up only when needed. Though, I must admit that their broadband tariffs for unlimited downloads is indeed appealing to me!

This year, hopefully, Reliance would go in for the big bang launch. If and when they feel the heat in landlines.

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I would have dismissed the whole book as another conspiracy theory; however, backed by proper historical references it does make a lot of sense. I quote specifically from the text which does have relevance to what I have been asserting. It would help you to understand the issues better. Like for that matter, the attempts to obsfuscate the issues. This is from the preface: (emphasis is mine)

I know that sounds fantastic, but if the human race lifted its eyes from the latest soap opera or game show for long enough to engage its brain, it would see that these events
are not just going to happen – they are happening. The momentum for the centralised
control of global politics, business, banking, military and media is gathering pace by the hour. The microchipping of people is already being suggested and, in many cases,
underway.

Whenever a hidden agenda is about to be implemented there is always the
period when the hidden has to break the surface for the final push into physical reality.
This is what we are seeing now in the explosion of mergers between global banking and
business empires, and the speed at which political and economic control is being
centralised through the European Union, the United Nations, the World Trade
Organisation, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and the stream of other
globalising bodies like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the G-7/G-8
summits.

Behind this constant and coordinated centralisation is a tribe of interbreeding
bloodlines which can be traced to the ancient Middle and Near East. They emerged from there to become the royalty, aristocracy and priesthood of Europe before expanding their
power across the world, largely through the Great British Empire.This allowed the tribe
to export its bloodlines to all the countries the British and European powers occupied,
including the United States where they continue to run the show to this day. There have
been just over 40 Presidents of the United States and 33 of them have been genetically
related to two people(Imagine), England’s King Alfred the Great and Charlemagne, the famous monarch in 9th century France. Throughout this whole period the agenda of this bloodline has been gradually implemented until we have reached the point today where centralised global control is possible.

Further the book asserts:

Like I say, ignorance is bliss – but only for so long. We create our own reality by our thoughts and actions. For every action or non-action there is a consequence. When we give our minds and our responsibility away, we give our lives away. If enough of us do it, we give the world away and that is precisely what we have been doing throughout known human history. This is why the few have always controlled the masses. The only difference today is that the few are now manipulating the entire planet because of the globalisation of business, banking and communications. The foundation of that control has always been the same: keep the people in ignorance, fear and at war with themselves. Divide, rule and conquer while keeping the most important knowledge to yourself…

The whole book is in pdf format; anyone who wishes to recieve this (The World’s best kept Secrets)can email me at drapuri (at) gmail dot com. I shall be glad to foward this to anyone. Infact, this has been scanned an converted to a pdf format to be shared with one and all.

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Frankly, Anil Ambani is now facing a huge problem with raising funds- it’s under pressure to go in for an IPO. Would it be advisable to invest in this company? I wouldn’t risk my money here.

The biggest drawback in their strategy is that they are spreading themselves too thin. On one hand, there is imminent launch of Broadband (when?) and on the other hand Anil has moved in his men and money to enter the DTH platform. Arguably his IPTV and DTH are two competing platforms. This just doesn’t gel. (He’s also picked up couple of licences in recently opened FM radio segment).

Take DTH first. Last week saw him sign up the deal for DTH under the brand name “Bluemagic”. According to the license part, the DTH should be non discriminatory, i.e. the channel carried by one should be available to the rival platform. Then, the set top boxes should be interoperable. This gives the real choice to consumer. Assuming that there is nothing wrong here, some dingbat has finally had sense to frame the correct rules. Given the pace at which Anil is amassing content, it would make sense for him to lock it down only through the IPTV platform he proposes to reach out.

Is the DTH a stop gap arrangement till he reaches the critical mass to sustain IPTV and Broadband? The answers aren’t forthcoming. As for the Internet Protocol based Television (IPTV), this technology has been sucessful in couple of countries. Notably US (TiVO) and now spreading across UK. Arguably, there are few sucess stories here. Yet, there is a whole gamut of licensing restrictions, content and backend for teleshopping as planned. There has been no news in the media as to how all this would be managed. Then of course, the cost of the set top boxes and a huge hassle of piracy. What would stop anyone to copy the content, covert it to torrents and seed it via Reliance’s own broadband network? Would the channels be encrypted and scrambled? The whole cost of setting up the retail and distribution outlets, cost of training the ubiquitous “executives” and customer redressals. Including the network to set up for collection of fees. Revenue sharing with the content providers et al. Well, last but not the least- the last mile access; proverbial holy grail of telecom operators.Let’s see how this foray works out in the future. I am beginning to believe that Anil Ambani has hired the same set of retrenched Tata advisors who lead it to doom! See it for yourself. Ever since Tata decided not be the “also ran” of the telecom rat race, it has notched up some impressive gains. Well, it said so according to it’s press circular. I have no way to confirm these claims.

Secondly, Anil Ambani plans to enter the health care segment. Reliance health sciences was providing it’s services for lab diagnostics. I believe that they even had created stem cell lines (hi tech stuff). However, Anil is now eyeing the lucrative health retail sector (pharmacies or even hospitals). Reason? Profits. Obscene profits. The medicines have a mark up price of 1000-5000% . I am not exaggerating. That’s the reason why the other pharma majors are in the hospital segment because the branded drugs gives them a steady source of income.

Coming back to Anil Ambani- he has yet to prove himself in the telecom market. It’s possible that he’s collecting stray bits and the then go for the big bang. It recently introduced 3 years incoming for mobile phones- in response to Tata’s 2 years free incoming. A sad reflection for a company that till recently dictated the terms for affordability and plans that forced all others to cut back prices to retain customers.

The new year may bring forth good news for us customers. If of course the promised 100mbps speeds materialise. His right hand man Amit Khanna is very effusive personality- as so it appears from his columns. I believe that instead of conjuring up dreams, it’s more important to get some action on ground.

Before I end, I must admit that Reliance has an excellent hold over media. Perhaps no one talks about him or his ventures with the crtique it’s needed. He’s inherited the art form from his father who “used to manage the environment”. The exact details elude me but Reliance had forayed in some business publication in around 70′s or 80′s. The venture failed but gave them valuable lessons in media management.

Is Anil planning to be the next media mogul?

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This comes in the wake of reported pronouncements that Maran would ask Bill Gates to reduce the price for Windows Starter Edition.

Let me start off with a discliamer here- I have a deep disgust for proprietary software and specially Microsoft. I am really wondering whether a curtailed software would even be sufficient for anyone’s needs. There was a huge hullaballo about thee ways and means Microsoft has shortcharged the customers.

In any case, piracy woes have struck Microsoft, specially in the developing countries. It has been taking “proactive steps” to safeguard its “software”. Bug ridden that is.

Mr Maran, do you know about Linux? Specially Ubuntu Linux? If you give them your address, they would ship the Cd’s anywhere to your destination, FREE of cost. It’s different version, called as Edubuntu is available for free download and has been making news specially as it is tailored for the education community.

Sub 10000 PC is a myth- something that would severly curtail the performance aspect- of course, you would expect the people to be dumb morons and take the bait.

The arguments are mainly academic, whether or not its possible to get in a sub 10k PC. The point here is that you are refusing to look at the alternatives like thin client server model. This would surely go a long way in addressing the digital divide. Perhaps you could focus your attention on BSNL opening up the last mile and the VSNL acting funny to deny access to the ISP’s by means of high usage costs. Or even perhaps, you could try and lobby the Finance ministry to remove the “service tax” on each and everything included.

There’s a lot that can be done- and no need to ask ole pal Billy. He has enough people who hate him to the core of their hearts.

Disclaimer: This is by no way an endorsement of Ubuntu Linux- yet, there are some people who are willing to ship costly CD’s all the way across the world. And of course minus any licensing restrictions. I wanted to highlight this point only.

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I had earlier mentioned about the hoopla behind the 3 G services. Fact is that the content service providers are seeing a massive business oppurtunity behind this. Since, the usual plain vanilla mobile services are no fun., Mobile telephone operators seem to be looking forward for those “killer applications”. Games and ring tone downloads et al are defined as such. All they need is a differential in services. Hence they are rooting for 3 GF services.

A new website called as Content Sutra begs to differ in my assessment. It mentions about Pradip Baijal’s forecast about millions of subscriberswho would be willing to upgrade to 3 G phones or services when they are introduced. If this isn’t fallacy then what else is?

Reason being is that with the introduction of new technology, the prices would be way beyond the reach of a common man- the same person who is bread and butter in terms of numbers. Then, the content delivery services. Airtel Live is a moderate success and people are bitching about the costs behind the same to access the same. I remember, long time back, AirTel had outsourced it’s “value added services” to a third party content provider with no service level gurantee. I had to call up the customer care service several times to have them resumed.

On other had, there is an interesting “analysis” of the media industry facing upto the challanges of piracy and newer modes of delivery channels. I d agree to some extent; the numbers are again “estimates” with no clear cut idea as to how they have been arrived at.

Read More

3G services would be a pass; lets hope that TRAI is not folish enough to waste the spectrum and let these people run riot and make more mess.

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