Broadband Blog » TRAI sucks

Mobile number portability and TRAI: Suckers

Administrator — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:20:32 +0000

As per the media reports, the mobile number portability is delayed because BSNL and MTNL were not ready for it.

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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Pirates rejoice!

Administrator — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:18:26 +0000

Piracy, in strictest sense of the term, is defined as “copyright violation”. It is strictly the realm of law to define the various provisions and it’s literal meaning. The purpose of this post is not to go in the legalese but to define the reason behind this “growing phenomenon”: Broadband.

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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Administrator — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:38:41 +0000

TRAI is best known as a regulator that cannot enforce it’s own recommendations. Therefore, it brings forth new regulations to replace the ones it had brought earlier. It believes them to be set in stone and believes that they are timeless. It is with this fallacy, TRAI has remained in existence.

Rediff reports about TRAI recommendations. They may portend the future of the things to come.

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Spice Telecom: Snapped up by Idea

Administrator — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:14:00 +0000

Birla’s group Idea snapped up Spice, one of the last stand alone players in the market. Idea cellular is no angel in white. Spice isn’t the best thing to have happened to mobile industry ever although, they were among the initial telecom players to have 900 Mhz spectrum and were the only big players having a huge monopoly for over 3 years. The promoters, Modi group, made huge amount of money. I remember my time in Karnataka when Spice was hell bent on promoting itself as “Southern Spice” and pioneered the use of minimalist advertising.

It isnt a bad deal for Idea. For the intellectually inclined, here is a spiel from Business Standard (although the link is guranteed to go dead soon):

At Rs 77 per share that Idea is shelling out for the loss-making Spice, the latter is valued at nearly 20 times forward enterprise value /ebitda (EV/ebitda) while at Rs 157, TMIL is valuing Idea around 15 times FY09 EV/ebitda. That’s possibly because at the end of the day Idea is a gainer from the buyout; it will be left with cash, which for a telco that’s planning to become a pan-Indian player and is now present in 13 out of 22 circles, can come in handy. So while Idea will pay Rs 2,700 crore for the stake in Spice, it will get Rs 7,200 crore from Telekom Malaysia, leaving it with a net Rs 4,500 crore.

I am jittery about the Telekom Malaysia investing here in India because they are known to be thugs in the big league. Remember the Salim Group which cosied up with the Left Government in Bengal? They paid a pittiance and got prime land at throwaway prices in order to set up “housing colonies” and malls.

This marks the formation of oligopolies although I am surprised that no other company offered better money for Spice considering the fact that mobile portability is not feasible in present times; most of the original subscribers are loyal to Spice irrespective of their services. It would have been a ready pool of subscribers with an efficient spectrum. There is something fishy on for sure.

Did anyone make any noise about the regulatory approval? Would we ever see anti competitive clauses?

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