Image via CrunchBase

how would it be disruptive for the traditional cellular carriers.

A lot has been written skype’s acquistion (please see the related links below). Some people feel that it’s going to be good for the enterprise market, some feel that it is a useless deal with Microsoft bleeding millions of dollars everyday and a questionable “internet policy”. Perhaps all these rationales look at the whole question piecemeal. But no one has the complete answer.

I have been interested in the VoIP market for long. I have written about it earlier extensively (here, here, here) in the past. Yet, Skype’s acquisition takes the cake.

Image via Wikipedia

In an earlier post, I mentioned:

Image via CrunchBase

TRAI called for implementation of Internet Telephony and Carrier Access Codes.

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….. If Internet telephony is implemented in it’s present shape, it would

see present rates crashing down to a large extent.

Image via Wikipedia

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.

In another blog post, I had written:

Govind says that Wifi can be used to carry calls which works out to be cheaper. Of course, I have explored these options way back earlier on; the current “competitive” scenario has resulted only in oligopolies and each new talk plan is basically a rehash of the others. Without disclosing upfront about the estimated monthly outgo, TRAI okays each plan without taking the consumer’s advantage in question. As a result we are fleeced to no extent. I really doubt whether WiFi can be used to carry out the calls-the investments are way too huge to justify parallel (and cheaper ) networks. Where would Bharti get it’s crores from?

Assuming that wifi becomes available all around, what is the guarantee that telcos won’t use all means to block the calls via Skype or any other internet phone? High usage charges would spike any consumer interest because in all probability it would be a “value added service” which by it’s own argument, can be priced higher. Unless of course, people set up their own small WiFi networks. A long shot indeed.

And in the winning entry for “Big Ideas Contest”, Skype (or Internet Telephony) was mentioned in passing; actually leveraging the low cost of routing international calls and passing on the advantage to the customers.

Teleconferencing would make it easier for people to people contacts; Gujarat has shown the way! Why can’t India have something similar to Skype? (There is a move to have something similar in the GNU world where encryption would be based on open standards).

I don’t have any love lost for Microsoft; but as any corporation, it does what it has to do to survive. It’s a jungle out there and only the best survive by breaking through the clutter. There can be no easy answers to certain “defining moments”; we must wait for the answers to reveal themselves. The point here is that I have remained consistent in my assertions over the years and have called for opening up the standards instead.

Let’s look at what New York Times article has to say.

Image via Wikipedia

The telecommunications industry is already in a state of flux as more people disconnect their home telephone lines in favor of cellphones. Now the wireless carriers are looking for new ways to make money based on mobile broadband and applications, rather than voice minutes. “Eventually, everything migrates to a data channel,” said Brian Higgins, an executive at Verizon Wireless who is developing products and services for the company’s high-speed 4G network. “We’re moving away from silos of communication to one where everything is combined together.”

This assertion is not valid but rather a corporate spin and gibberish. The reason is that landlines offer higher rate of data transfer and wireless networks can easily get choked. Similarly for 3G networks being pandered about in India; main reason is to offer better voice minutes than spur on the data usage. Had there been any commitment for the same, the market would have reacted in a “bloodbath” to drop the rates and make it better to access the services.

Howsoever clueless these people are, data is definitely not on their minds. Hence, the question of “communication silos” does not arise at all.

But the Skype deal also signifies a larger interest in next-generation communications services. It is not just Skype that the wireless companies need to worry about. A bevy of mobile messaging applications, including WhatsApp, Kik, GroupMe and textPlus, allow people to send messages over data networks, sidestepping the cost of sending and receiving standard text messages.

Carriers already must deal with many new competitors in the communications game. Name companies like Apple, Facebook and Google are making services available that traditionally only carriers could offer. Google, like Skype, offers ways to make free phone and video calls over the Internet. Apple lets iPhone owners make video calls.

The ultimate risk for the carriers, analysts say, is becoming “dumb pipes,” providing only the data connection and not selling any more sophisticated communications services themselves.

Agreed on this count. The newer generation services mentioned here are really disruptive. However, they have not achieved a critical scale; not to the level that carriers start blocking them actively violating “net-neutrality”.

So how would the companies react to such developments? Possibly by lowering expectations of supra-massive profits at our expense and by “signing up deals”. Although Value Added Services (VAS) remains a viable channel, I still have to see any “developments” in that; it remains a subject of a future post.

Carriers have responded to the shift toward digital communication differently. Some seek to leverage the new wave of services to differentiate themselves and gain an edge over competitors. Sprint, for example, recently united with Google to let its customers link their Sprint phone numbers to Google Voice, a service that rings all of a person’s phones and even Gmail when someone calls that person’s number.

However, these efforts are half hearted approaches to the present dispensation. Skype is important, yes, in the VOIP Space. With the development of GNU Public Telephony project on fast track, I am sure something would definitely strike in for alternative access opportunities like SIP phones coming in the mainstream.

I remain positive for a Vonage like service over landlines and I strongly back that company (please, it’s not an endorsement). For a fixed amount, it’s possible to call in major countries and is totally “place agnostic”. I can make unlimited international calls all across for a fixed monthly fees. Thats the real power of broadband for communication. Wireless is not cool because of it’s inherent limitations and POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) is STILL the best bet.

Image via Wikipedia

Related articles

• What Will Be The Skype Effect On Telco’s? (viralblog.com)
• Microsoft and Skype: Steve Ballmer as George Steinbrenner (smartblogs.com)
• Why Microsoft’s Buyout of Skype Changes the Mobile Game (atomicpoet.wordpress.com)
• Microsoft’s Skype Deal Offers Huge Benefits, Risks (microsoft-watch.com)
• Microsoft to acquire Skype, Windows Phone integration incoming (dialtosave.co.uk)
• How the Skype Deal Can Pay Off for Microsoft (datacenterknowledge.com)
• Microsoft Acquires Skype- $8.5 Billion (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
• Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion. Why, Exactly? (wired.com)
• VoIP Provider EUC Services Launches JiffyCall, an Online Pinless Dialing Service for Cheap International VoIP Calling (prweb.com)
• Microsoft’s Skype Deal Means Monetizing (microsoft-watch.com)
• Microsoft Unlikely to Boost Rates on Skype’s Premium Service (dailyfinance.com)
• Guide To Installing Skype On Fedora (brighthub.com)
• Skype: from start-up to $8.5bn sale (guardian.co.uk)
• Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5bn in its biggest purchase and gamble yet (guardian.co.uk)
• How One Swedish Startup Was Almost Acquired By Skype, Pre-Microsoft Deal (techcrunch.com)
• UAE’s du to offer VoIP this year; Skype still banned/blocked (skypejournal.com)

Related posts:

1. Facebook and social media: Overblown AND overhyped I have argued against excessive reliance on social media; it...
2. Mainstream Media: Unable to grasp digital trends This post, was in part motivated by Shyam’s incisive commentary...
3. Media wants to slow down Broadband? Well, it could be the big news. I have always...
4. Media, Telecom and Fall of Business Standard This post was actually motivated by Tech Crunch write up...
5. Idea Cellular: Absolute pits I had the unfortunate instance of coming across an Idea...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image via CrunchBase

I have argued against excessive reliance on social media; it is a stupid decision to hail Facebook and Twitter as the “next destination”. This is the problem with the marketing executives either from the mobile companies or handset manufacturers. For example, it’s not difficult to miss the blurb that accessing Facebook is “easy” by a “single click button”.

The experience on ground is different. Let’s assume, for a moment that there are over 600 million users. How many of them are active? What is the “engagement matrix” on the web site? What is the actual cost retrieved by

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook from it’s advertisers; i.e. how effective is advertising on the platform? Is social engagement really effective? I mean, it’s stupidity to see links from Facebook friends streaming in Bing (which has implemented the feature and live on to crow that they are up in the pissing game with Google).

If you dissect the issue further, accumulating a number of “likes” on the platform does not mean that it likely to translate into action. I was moved by this interesting blog post and they

Image via CrunchBase

gave explicit reasons why they are moving away from facebook hype: (emphasis mine)

1. The Facebook API changes too often. The plug-ins are buggy, the API changes without notice rather often, and there are too many rules constraining how developers can use the API in building applications. As a platform, it is unstable, period. ……

2. Facebook is overhyped. Personally, even though Facebook actually has 600 million active users, developers still tend to overestimate how many people actually 1) have a Facebook account, 2) use it regularly, and 3) are comfortable using it as a third-party authentication method. Many consumers across different niche markets are simply not familiar with how Facebook works; developing Facebook-only applications marginalizes this segment of users, who may be substantial in number.

3. Facebook is still mainly social for most, and exclusively social for some. We are still not completely convinced that Facebook can be an effective platform for any commercial activity…….Of all the new variants of ecommerce, the one that might actually take off is, in our view, mobile commerce.

More interestingly, Facebook and other industry “leaders” are opposing the proposed bill to protect the user’s privacy. I am not sure how this is going to pan out but this is good enough indication that some sense has dawned to protect the users from advertising onslaught.

California could force Facebook and other social-networking sites to change their privacy protection policies under a first-of-its-kind proposal at the state Capitol that is opposed by much of the Internet industry……social-networking sites would have to allow users to establish their privacy settings…

….like who could view their profile and what information would be public to everyone on the Internet – when they register to join the site instead of after they join. Sites would also have to set defaults to private so that users would choose which information is public

These measures would not apply to India or it’s privacy laws though I heard they have been tightened in recent times; the impact on end users has not been discussed.

There’s one more compelling reason to avoid reliance on Facebook; falling traffic. Countries that were on the path to early adoption is seeing a fall in the traffic (perhaps an indication of slow and waning interest).

The average decline over months has yet to become negative, though. There are other possible factors at work, too, such as bugs in the Facebook ad tool that we get this data from…. in order to identif the long-term directions here is crucial for planning how to capitalize on Facebook’s success, or lack thereof.

It is most likely to be argued that India would perhaps be a “fantastic growth opportunity” but is corporate gibberish. Even if the “dark populations” are lighted up, in absence of aggressive promotion of localized content, it is unlikely to see a massive expansion. It seems that most of the companies keep their “outposts” in India to hire cheap labor for “translation” efforts. It’s not a generalized statement, but thats the reality. Again, there is NO reliable data to break up the traffic specific to the sites or universally agreed metrics to track traffic to popular sites (however, Opera Mobile‘s stats are likely to be more reliable).

Where do we go from here? It is important not to rely completely on the “social aspect” of the net. It is a matter of time before it fades away for perhaps a better “personalized approach” (more so as semantic web matures and we have better ontology) to deal with. That also comes as a rider but there is no “perfect ideal approach”. This is something that the next generation access devices and advertising agencies should keep in mind before they can actually deliver better “value added services”.

Related articles

• 3 Reasons that We are Moving Away from Facebook as a Platform (zuupy.com)
• Social-networking sites face new privacy battle (seattlepi.com)
• Social-networking sites face new privacy battle (sfgate.com)
• Facebook’s Stealth Attack on Google Exposes Its Own Privacy Problem (wired.com)
• Facebook is Passé. Pt. 2 – Here Comes the Mob(ile) and Those that Do no Evil! (trak.in)
• Does Anybody Really Care About Facebook’s P.R. Fumble? (allfacebook.com)
• Why Facebook Smeared Google (insights.chitika.com)
• Naukri and Monster, a no Longer Purple Cow, for Job Hunters in India (digitalgossips.com)

Related posts:

1. Mainstream Media: Unable to grasp digital trends This post, was in part motivated by Shyam’s incisive commentary...
2. Media, Telecom and Fall of Business Standard This post was actually motivated by Tech Crunch write up...
3. Media wants to slow down Broadband? Well, it could be the big news. I have always...
4. RIM Blackberry: Slipping fortunes As per the blurb on Forbes,RIM Looks To Revive Smartphone...
5. Chrome Notebooks: Any business model for developing nations? A lot has been made up for Google Chrome OS...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

This post, was in part motivated by Shyam’s incisive commentary on FirstPost. It is promoted by Network18.

First Post primarily remains an “aggregator” of news; perhaps the underlying motivation is SEO tricks of identifying the trending topics and create topical interest by paying “journalists” to create blogs around it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like this. Trying to covert the traffic into “unique visitors”, cross promoting it on other media channels and identifying the “trends” to write on issues smacks of Huffington Post‘s tactics.

I personally believe that much of criticism that stems for Huffington Post comes from the mainstream media; possibly they are unable to comprehend the huge gains that this site has made in a short span of time. The owner has been able to do a web alone business, “aggregate” or scrape content, pay out dimes for it’s star bloggers and more important, get the advertising $$$. Hence, it tends to get the ire of the “purists”.

Indians, of course, wish to replicate a proven model. No one, wants to adapt to a new order or invest serious resources in building up a web property that has a lasting value proposition. Top of the mind recall is Techmeme and is my first

Image via CrunchBase

stop everyday in Google Reader to identify the breaking stories as it happens (it utilizes RSS feeds in the background; you could search for it’s leaderboard OPML file on their site to read the stories). A simple implementation (e.g. Webmeme) would have sufficed and promoted it’s journalists to blog independently of the constraints of “mainstream media”.

How is this really concerned with the ethos of the blog? Well, for starters, social internet is all useless hype. Twitter and Facebook are not here to stay; Orkut was a huge failure and Twitter is growing without a service model. It still doesn’t know about advertising nor is

Image via Wikipedia

there any reasonable model to influence it’s evolutiton. Nevertheless, in this internet access challenged country, this is a huge let down.

Perhaps the people behind the product are blissfully unaware of mobile access dominating the landscape (I doubt whether they have a mobile interface optimized) or of the “niche audience” that would be attracted to something like this. However, a cursory glance at the written articles leaves a lot to be desired.

(Highly recommended write up).

Related articles

• Online survey shows Canadians trust mainstream media over all others (thenextweb.com)
• Modern Dance in Mainstream Media? Google Celebrates Martha Graham’s Birthday (socialrhythms.wordpress.com)
• Twitter Does Not Supplant Other Media, It Amplifies It (techcrunch.com)
• Twitter’s different news agenda from mainstream media and blogs (reportr.net)
• How Did You Hear about Osama’s Death? Take the Quiz (marketersstudio.com)
• What to believe about Twitter And its role in the evolving media landscape (impact.webershandwick.com)
• Is Twitter Really “Mainstream”? (markevanstech.com)
• Arianna & Dale, They Can Huff & PuffBut They Won’t Blow Guido’s House Down (order-order.com)
• Mainstream Media are Liars Cowards and Traitors for Shielding Obama- This Poll Proves It (truebluenz.wordpress.com)

Related posts:

1. Media, Telecom and Fall of Business Standard This post was actually motivated by Tech Crunch write up...
2. Media wants to slow down Broadband? Well, it could be the big news. I have always...
3. Bridging the digital divide in India: Inexpensive access devices? I must admit that I haven’t focussed on writing about...
4. RIM Blackberry: Slipping fortunes As per the blurb on Forbes,RIM Looks To Revive Smartphone...
5. Chrome Notebooks: Any business model for developing nations? A lot has been made up for Google Chrome OS...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In the same vein, broadband has been given a complete miss. In some recent telecom conference, the same issue was raised with assholes patting themselves on their back about “mythical 100 million” users. Telecom is a very dynamic field; it is impossible to nail down the exact number of subscribers unless you have strict defined criteria for what constitutes an active connection and the user who has fallen off the grid. Nil. Nada.

3G has been a monumental waste of resources (indirectly your money, you assholes); for all your crowing about the “world class data services”, these companies are sticking up a sore thumb up your ass. In terms of indirect taxes, huge mark ups on the tariff plans, advertising costs and pathetic end result to consumers (who likes caps on the broadband, you sissies), consumer is the end looser.

The reason why everyone jumped on the “3G bandwagon” was because of spectral efficiencies and not otherwise. No one likes dropped calls; 3G is going to ameliorate that. This also gave the companies a reason to upgrade their ancient infrastructure and opening up the backdoors for “real time snooping”.

Hence, these three issues are the most “rattling issues”, in my opinion. They are unlikely to be addressed in fancy documentations, “think tanks”, myriad “research firms” and others because none of them seem to have a fundamental grasp on the issues. So for all those morons who whimper on the forums about “lack of services”, you are unlikely to see any major change coming this year either.

Related articles

• TRAI proposes Rs.1-lakh cr infrastructure investment (hindu.com)
• India telecom changes proposed (bbc.co.uk)
• India min says M&A norms for telcos need to be liberal (reuters.com)
• India’s former telecom minister officially charged (marketwatch.com)
• Is the telecom party in India over? (trak.in)
• ‘Raja manipulated Telecom Commission’ (hindu.com)
• Mobile Fair-India telecoms gear boom seen surviving scandal (reuters.com)

Related posts:

1. 3G India: Stupidity to extreme An overtly maniacal Government now wants a lawful interception of...
2. Affordable Telecom in India Affordable Telecom in India The most important aspect of affordable...
3. Indian Telecom: No “backdoor” Chinese Equipment This should have been done earlier! Huawei has set up...
4. New Telecom Policy? In what appears to be an “exciting” new phase of...
5. Airtel & Vodafone India: Royally screwed! The incumbents had a cosy oligopoly. Their talk plans were...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image via Wikipedia

For long, I have felt the need to do a “consumer survey” which is motivated by real customers than the paid for shit stuff that most telecom operators crow about. It is impossible to capture data from the cross section of the user population and the retards who crowd on the forums would not be able to grasp the import of this exercise.

I realize the difficulties inherent in this exercise immediately. First and the foremost is lack of actual “complaint data”; TRAI does put up the figures online but there is a mechanism where these operators have to report back the action taken on the complaints. This is a good mechanism but I don’t see it enforced or whatever TRAI does, they are clueless idiots to make this data work for a better policy formulation.

Ditto for the existing delivery of the complaint mechanism. An aggrieved customer calls the operator in call center, is given a complaint number (not always) and no time frame for the resolution. I am presuming that their workflow is designed for the said purpose. Like any corporate organization working on “cost savings”, this is possibly “outsourced”. A smart team utilizes “dumb terminals” clogging up the bandwidth for most of “executives”. All the while, these brainless sods make the customers wait even more utilizing the spectrum.

This is a “presumption” but this workflow is bound to keep the customers “unhappy”. Billing and metering issues are definitely top of the list; unfortunately, even these thorny issues are not resolved in their entirety.

What needs to be done? Actually, this could easily be a dissertation exercise, capture and visualize the data and present a solid case report to the telecom companies. However, the implementation needs money and I am unlikely to see any movement on that count.

I could help with some possible criteria; reach me on the email (under “contact”).

One more thing. Reliance, Aircel and Airtel easily top the shit list.

Related articles

• TRAI: Maximum Subscriber Complaints Over Last 3 Years Against Airtel Followed By Reliance and Vodafone (telecomjunction.wordpress.com)
• India sends notices to Aircel over network roll out – official (reuters.com)
• India’s Telecom Regulator Proposes Quota for Local Equipment (pcworld.com)
• DND registry (manavaidurai.wordpress.com)

Related posts:

1. Smaller Telecom Operators in India Smaller Telecom Operators in India In the complex telecom muddle,...
2. ADAG India: Reliance in deep shit It’s called as “double barrelled assholism” In other words, those...
3. India Broadband and Telecom Update There is a lot of noise in the media without...
4. Aircel India: False start? This is owned by Maxis Telecom who had bought a...
5. Snippets from the Telecom Situation in India Snippets from the Telecom Situation in India At the height...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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.

Related articles

• ‘Raja manipulated Telecom Commission’ (hindu.com)
• National Spectrum Act proposed (hindu.com)
• 2G Spectrum .CAG Report. (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
• 2G-Criminal Conspiracy Charge against Essar,Reliance Communications? (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
• PAC draft report puts 2G loss at Rs.1.90 lakh crore (hindu.com)
• Charge sheet identical to CAG findings (hindu.com)
• Arun Shourie to appear before CBI on February 21 (hindu.com)
• US Highlights 2G Scam is Unhealthy For Indian Telecom Market (telecomjunction.wordpress.com)

Related posts:

1. 2G Scam India: WTF To be honest, even I don’t know. I quote from...
2. Telecom Scandal India: More details From the world of mobile phones…. to the real life...
3. S-Band Spectrum Scam India: ISRO in the dock It does not bode well for a country whose appointed...
4. Update on 2G Scam India: Reliance under scanner Anil Ambani must be a worried man. After being summoned...
5. Fight against Vodafone India: Sweet victory It was a big long drawn fight against Vodafone Essar...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image via Wikipedia

A little while back, Rajesh Jain had run a “Big Idea for India” contest. He has touched on many issues in his previous posts; there was a lack of serious debate on Broadband. This contest was open to all; I had mailed my entry to Rajesh on his email.
He had received over 150 responses for the same.

Jain announced the winners recently; in which yours truly has also figured (the names are in an random order). The contest was judged by Jain and Atanu Dey (whose blog is linked to in the blog roll in side bar). Of course, he has been a huge influence in shaping up my thought process and I owe a lot to him.

The post, in it’s entirety follows here. For the regular readers, there is nothing new because I have already touched on these issues in the previous posts extensively.

This is one answer and highly underrated option. The following scenario is envisaged:

1) Optic fibres running across to get the data without caps. We need fibre to home instead of outdated copper. Last mile access is contentious; while opening up last mile for private players is contentious, this needs to be debated. Britain has opened it up under strict regulations and British Telecom has been forced to upgrade it’s infrastructure to retain customers.

2) Heavy public investment for scalable architechture. Not 3G guzzling up spectrum but community Wifi’s (pay per use or perhap involving the municipalities making the people accountable directly for the level of involvement).

3) Create an ecosystem of open source applications to harness ideas; make it easier for people to access services. (Open Source standards promote interoperability; closed source is meant for perpetual profiteering at public’s expense).

4) Opening up the Government’s accumulated data through API’s etc; create models around it. For e.g., data from GPS installed in public transport would easily display the estimated arrival time through SMS if needed on the mobile phones. (“Hacker culture” is missing in India; most of the Bangalore flotsam is moronic army of debuggers and script kiddies).

5) Teleconferencing would make it easier for people to people contacts; Gujarat has shown the way! Why can’t India have something similar to Skype? (There is a move to have something similar in the GNU world where encryption would be based on open standards).

6) Education sector would get a boost; not only invite faculty, stream educational videos, hold tele-sessions but teach kids for a wonderful world of Internet. (Pilot experiments in Bihar/Gujarat have been well received; the idea needs scaling up).

7) Spin off benefits from e-commerce applications.

The potential is huge; if you are planning it to share with BJP, the easiest way out is to break the ISP‘s monopoly, hold TRAI responsible for execution (not DoT) and revise Broadband definition to at least 2 Mbps (UNLIMITED, WITHOUT any caps).

Thanks Rajesh!

Related posts:

1. Mobility Rajesh Jain has an excellent series of posts on mobility...
2. 2010 round up. This perhaps generates more cynicism than anything else. Over the...
3. Mobiles :Your next PC? Rajesh Jain has posted a series of articles on Mobiles...
4. Opera Mini released The fourth beta of Opera Mini has been released.Amazingly, this...
5. 3G India: Who needs it? The following is the text of the email sent and...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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.

Related posts:

1. 2G Scam India: More skeletons tumbling out. It’s unlikely “Swan” and “Loop Telecom” would ever be “penalized...
2. S-Band Spectrum Scam India: ISRO in the dock It does not bode well for a country whose appointed...
3. 2G Scam India: The lid of the newsmen The list of the videos posted on You Tube. How...
4. 2G scam India: How it impacts national security This is a rather detailed and longish post on Rajeev’s...
5. Adios Pramod Mahajan Sorry to have learnt that you are no more Mr....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image via Wikipedia

I haven’t used Foursquare or Gowalla ever (but installing the app from Android Market right now). It would not be possible to do a comparison of these apps straight away but there are many people who have done it earlier.

The interesting aspect is that it relies on “crowd sourcing” turning up the recommendations as the user base grows. An important part of it is growing database of how social search has evolved since it is no longer dependent on what is being written about something. Instead it relies on how we interact with others in real time, build on the data, release the API‘s and bam… you have something better than the incumbent.

The impact may not be apparent immediately but I am surprised myself as to why I didn’t cover this issue earlier. Still, I am keeping my eyes peeled for the same and checking out Foursquare. Maybe, I’d look at Gowalla later but there are more people on Foursquare though. Gowalla sounds very odd (in my opinion).

Although I still feel that there is a huge scope for something similar in India (even as a value added service) but there is no clone either. Crap.

Related articles

• Gowalla Leads in Openness, to Offer Place Data Download This Year (programmableweb.com)
• Gowalla 3 Checks In with Everyone: Can it Catch Foursquare? (dailyfinance.com)
• Gowalla for Android Updated With UI Overhaul (intomobile.com)
• Hands-on with Gowalla for Android [Video] (thenextweb.com)
• Gowalla 3 Launches For Android Today (crunchgear.com)
• Gowalla CEO: Location Apps Must Be About More than Games and Badges (pcworld.com)
• Gowalla 3 Launches For Android Today (techcrunch.com)
• Foursquare vs. Gowalla, big differences (mddt.wordpress.com)
• Gowalla hooks up with CNN’s iReport (lostremote.com)
• How Foursquare’s “Venue Project” is Expanding Its Platform Strategy (programmableweb.com)
• Echoecho 2.0 Makes Meeting Up With Your Friends as Easy as Five Clicks (newsgrange.com)
• Who Will Win the SXSW Location War? (ghdialogue.posterous.com)

Related posts:

1. Opera mobile store: Live now I had previously written about Opera stepping in Mobile store....
2. Mobile Internet: Opera gets leg space in App store Forget the statistics, the “key words” or even foward looking...
3. Mobile Content: Where the f*** it is? I have explored various other aspects of mobile internet in...
4. A decade of mobile services It’s 10 years since the first mobile call was made....
5. AT&T iPhone Mobile Hotspot Launches March 11 – $20 A Month Extra, With Cap Bumped To 4 GB Earlier this month AT&T confirmed that they’d be supporting the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image via Wikipedia

Kudos to the early adopters who got seduced by 3G. It was hailed as the coming of the jesus; as the next re-incarnation and watching “TV” on the go. There are some stupid people and then there are even more stupid people. The profound cretins can’t even distiguish chalk from cheese.

Interestingly, Business Standard has shown “rare courage” in Indian media to get on with negative coverage of the 3G experience. One of the commonest complaints is the quality of the service.

A fluctuating 3G network is a common complaint from consumers who are early adopters of the service. Users say their new 3G network keeps shifting back to 2G network, mostly in the middle when they are downloading or uploading a video. For the time period that networks shift from 3G to 2G, customers are unable to make calls as well.

Another “frustrated” customer points back to fluctuating network:

And 3G service is not living up to its most luring promise — entertainment while on the go. On the contrary, customers in Mumbai says the 3G network doesn’t work while travelling in the trains. “The advertisements say that 3G users need not miss matches and watch TV on mobile. But once we get on to the train, there are no traces of network, neither 2G nor 3G,” says yet another frustrated subscriber.

I have always advocated community Wifi for the purpose. Invest money from the municipalties. That way, the community owns the network, instead of being dictated by a couple of dickheads. However, as the nature of this banana republic is, we underestimate the indirect costs of having such pathetic companies at helm of the affairs. Wireless data is a pipe dream; a useless idea which should be abhorred.It cannot be undone but well lets see how this unfolds.

A company that cannot ensure proper coverage should be out of the business. Simple. In India, it would not happen though.

P.S. The image above shows the Metro Wifi which ought to be blanketed.

Related articles

• Overdrive Pro Offers 3G/4G Mobile Broadband For Sprint (informationweek.com)
• Google Nexus S Goes 4G on Sprint (pcworld.com)
• If You Have Smartphone You Don’t Need 3G Tablets (mwd.com)
• How I Left AT&T for Something Better and Saved Money Doing it (lockergnome.com)
• AT&T will use T-Mobile AWS for LTE, current towers for 3G (intomobile.com)

Related posts:

1. 3G India: Who needs it? The following is the text of the email sent and...
2. Alternative networks? Wifi networks carrying calls other than the conventional means? Govndraj...
3. 3G India: Stupidity to extreme An overtly maniacal Government now wants a lawful interception of...
4. Sprint: We Could Have Nationwide LTE By 2014 – And LTE Ready Devices By Mid 2012… It remains a very distinct possibility that Sprint will make...
5. T-Mobile, Sprint Merger Still A Possibility – Deutsche Telekom Might Own 50% Of Merged Company According to a new Bloomberg report, Deutsche Telekom AG has...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image via Wikipedia

Bureaucracy is restrictive. They are sozzled idiots who have no clue as to which way the wind is blowing. No doubt, TRAI is saddled with such idiots brimming up to the core.

I came across a brilliant write up by Keith Hudson (here) and he writes nailing the issue to the core:

And then there’s the educational potential of the Internet. When I wrote my book, Introduction to Computer-Assisted Learning (Chapman and Hall, 1984) — that is, before the Internet was invented — I envisaged that, by now, we would have vast educational programmes in all possible subjects beamed down from satellites. How naive I was! They still haven’t arrived. The formal university procedures and bureaucracy-controlled school systems still hold sway and cramp many more potential geniuses than they encourage. The poor bright boy or girl in a far-off Chinese or Indian village—or, so help us, increasingly in poor homes in the US or the UK—still hasn’t got access to effective teaching programmes that could be available on the Net. When this happens—one day!—then that will be yet another spanner in over-large bueaucratic empires.

Hence when I come across fancy experiments with OPLC projects, it isn’t the sole medium of instruction that helps. In any case, there is NO probable research or it’s outcome favoring the technology over the traditional methods. Technology can play it’s part as a supplement (e.g. Broadband) but not as a stand alone mechanism. A video conferencing in a remote village would actually help the children to explore the boundaries beyond their own physical limitations and confines but only if they have been primed to expect what is going to be shown to them. Here in lies the challange.

Related articles

• Caps Coming to Broadband Data Usage. Where Does That Leave Netflix? (community.tradeking.com)
• AT&T adds monthly data caps on home broadband (blogs.consumerreports.org)
• Will BT’s new broadband boss bring fibre to rural Britain? (telegraph.co.uk)
• Does Broadband Create Digital Ghettos? (techcrunch.com)
• Don’t Rural Areas Deserve Access to Improved Internet Service? (liveruralnl.com)
• Constant Contact Supports the National Broadband Plan (blogs.constantcontact.com)
• Shocker! UK regulator finds average broadband speeds are ‘less than half’ those advertised (engadget.com)

Related posts:

1. Indian Broadband Hassles: Potential of broadband .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { }...
2. Media reporting broadband is in pits If there is anyway one needs to get confused about...
3. Broadband: Content would choke Content is the king. Really? I have reasons to doubt...
4. Broadband in India- as essential as electricity? Part 2 Following up on the previous post, here is what the...
5. Mobile Internet: Opera gets leg space in App store Forget the statistics, the “key words” or even foward looking...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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).

Related articles

• Apple iPad 2 official release date in India may be announced in a couple of weeks (thenextweb.com)
• iPad May Be Magical. Apps Aren’t. Here’s Why. (gigaom.com)
• Zite – the best thing since Flipboard (paulacbrannan.wordpress.com)
• Doodle Jump Hits 10M Downloads; Promises iPad Version, Toys & More (mashable.com)
• SXSW 2011: Novelty of iPad news apps fades fast among digital delegates (guardian.co.uk)
• Duran Duran team up with Flipboard for ‘digital concert programme’ (mobile-ent.biz)
• Marketing to Women: Flipboard v. Pulse News Readers (jamiedunham.wordpress.com)
• Doodle Jump scores 10 million mobile downloads for two brothers (venturebeat.com)
• Why Android Tablets Are No Threat To Apple This Year — Our Q&A With Flipboard CEO Mike McCue (AAPL) (businessinsider.com)
• “Zite Personalized Magazine App for iPad” and related posts (ditii.com)
• Flipboard for iPad gets updated with Instagram and social search (mobile-ent.biz)
• Flipboard gains Instagram support, social search, and gets much faster (downloadsquad.switched.com)
• Flipboard Upgrade Boosts Speed, Integrates Social Search and Instagram (fastcompany.com)
• Mobile Gaming + E-commerce = a Win for Brands (adage.com)
• Could the iPad 2 replace traditional video game consoles? (tuaw.com)
• “Angry Birds Developer Suggests Console Games are Dying” and related posts (technobuffalo.com)
• Angry Birds Maker Predicts the Death of Console Gaming (nytimes.com)
• Angry Birds maker predicts the death of console gaming (venturebeat.com)
• EA Mobile teams with GetGlue for mobile game check-ins (mobile-ent.biz)
• Angry Birds boss believes console gaming is “dying” (Angry Birds HD) (gamesradar.com)
• Australian Government Wants To Classify Mobile Games (macstories.net)
• Who’s Playing Mobile Games? (ghdialogue.posterous.com)
• Angry Birds Exec: R.I.P. Console Gaming (pcworld.com)
• One in Three Mobile Phone Owners Is a Regular Mobile Gamer [STUDY] (mashable.com)
• Morbid Attractions (skulladay.blogspot.com)
• India userbase: Internet 100m, Mobile internet 40m (mahesh.com)
• Morbid Philosophy (alpup.blogspot.com)
• In Underground Jail, Symbols of Gadhafi Brutality (newser.com)

Related posts:

1. Content Services Telecom “revolution” needs mobile phone instruments. It appears to be...
2. Mobile Internet: Opera gets leg space in App store Forget the statistics, the “key words” or even foward looking...
3. Broadband: Content would choke Content is the king. Really? I have reasons to doubt...
4. Opera: State of mobile web I am not here to be a party pooper but...
5. Mobile Gaming Rashmi Bansal has an interestiing take on Mobile Gaming on...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image via Wikipedia

This is “out of context” post but I would like to highlight a kick starter campaign for a journalist, whose work I greatly admire. He’s written about the “grave diggers” of India; a rather quirky issue to write but is one of the dark “underexposed” issues in India.

Scott Carney is out there to raise funds for his planned documentary but prior to that he needs to raise funds for a trailor.

You can read more about this here.

Scott has a web site and the link to his other projects is here. His book on The Red Markets is due soon around June in India (based on communication with the author). His write up appeared in Wired recently.

I appeal to all to donate generously.

You can watch the video below:

Related posts:

1. 15 years of Internet in India And worse state for broadband. In a typical “forward looking...
2. Business Standard’s view point The leading English Business daily does not agree with my...
3. Post in Business Standard I was really disappointed with this newspaper earlier. I worte...
4. Text of Email published in Business Standard The mail was published in the Friday Edition dated 21...
5. Institutionalised stupidity I could have used harsher words. Business Standard has the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image via Wikipedia

Everyone is pissed.

And so does Tech Dirt claims that it would take over 10,000 years to change the ‘upto’ marketing hoopla in Broadband access.

The point here is that at least the regulators are talking about it. Here, TRAI is BLISSFULLY unaware of the issues! I wonder what the”consumer organizations” have to say about this.

Read More here.

Related articles

• Ofcom demands ISPs close ‘upto’ gap (go.theregister.com)
• Wired and wireless broadband in India, the next big thing (zdnet.com)
• It May Take Up To 10,000 Years Before We Finally Get Rid Of ‘Up To’ Language In Broadband Marketing (techdirt.com)
• Broadband connections are only half the speed that providers advertise, warns Ofcom (dailymail.co.uk)
• Broadband ads ‘need new rules’ (confused.com)
• Average broadband speeds ‘less than half those advertised’, says Ofcom (guardian.co.uk)

Related posts:

1. UK Still Looking To Kill ‘Up To’ Broadband Marketing Lingo – While In U.S. Some ISPs Have Already Done So Voluntarily Every year like clockwork (2009, 2010) European regulator Ofcom issues...
2. Why TRAI can’t be like Ofcom? Here’s from the BBC News where Ofcom wants the ISP’s...
3. Airtel Broadband: Ineffective marketing? Ever since it has introduced the new 512k unlimited plans...
4. Indian Broadband: Crawling BSNL “Broadband” is slowly slipping in the mediocrity; something that...
5. Broadband in India: Reaction to post on NDTV This is in response to NDTV’s coverage on Broadband and...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. Offer from Vijay Times I got an email from Vijay Times (Bangalore) who required...
2. Apple iPhone .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { }...
3. Convergence at cross roads One of the most promising applications of broadband is convergence....
4. Apple iPhone: Another feather in their cap I was positively impressed by this technology. I saw one...
5. Smartphones: The next wave of computing? There can be no easy answer to this. Both the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s from the BBC News where Ofcom wants the ISP’s to stop misleading news about Broadband.

Currently most ISPs advertise services as ‘up to’ a certain speed – for instance, 20Mbps (megabits per second).

But Ofcom’s latest research finds that very few consumers actually get these headline speeds.

“There is a substantial gap between advertised speeds and the actual speeds people get in their homes,” Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards told the BBC.

“The chances of someone receiving the advertised headline speed are fairly remote,” he said.

“We would like to see clearer information provided to consumers which more accurately reflects the likely speeds they will actually receive,” he added.

For those who are blissfully unaware, Ofcom is British Telecom Regulatory Agency.

Here’s the proposal:

“We have been pushing for ‘typical speeds’ to be made the gold standard for speed measurement since 2007 – in the same way that banks use ‘typical’ APR percentages.”

The Advertising Standards Authority is looking into the issue.

Ofcom is recommending that ISPs use Typical Speed Rates (TSR) to avoid confusing consumers.

Here’s a stinker:

Virgin Media, which fared the best in the speed tests, welcomed the news: “Ofcom’s latest report is yet another damning indictment that consumers continue to be treated like mugs and misled by ISPs that simply cannot deliver on their advertised speed claims,” said Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin Media

We in India, are stuck at 256 kbps. What the fuck is TRAI‘s problem? Why can’t we have someone who can actually deliver?

Related articles

• Ofcom demands ISPs close ‘upto’ gap (go.theregister.com)
• Concern at broadband speed claims (bbc.co.uk)
• Broadband providers’ ‘misleading’ ads exposed (independent.co.uk)
• Broadband ‘half advertised speed’ (mirror.co.uk)
• Firms Rapped Over Broadband Speed Ads (news.sky.com)
• Ofcom told to bring down ‘up to’ broadband speeds (go.theregister.com)
• TalkTalk and Tiscali could still face a fine, warns Ofcom (guardian.co.uk)
• Consumer group calls for end of ‘up to’ broadband advertising (v3.co.uk)
• Broadband advertising shake-up could end ‘up to’ packages (telegraph.co.uk)
• Broadband speeds misleading – Ofcom (asounddesign.wordpress.com)
• Ofcom told it must improve (lv.com)

Related posts:

1. Virgn India Mobile: Grey areas Mobile Virtual Network Operator or MVNO is a “backdoor” entry...
2. TRAI: Response to RTI application This was disappointing to say the least. It was expected...
3. TRAI: Appeal against information to appellate authority This gets interesting. Having the useless information from the Public...
4. TRAI: Killing Internet This is an excellent write up on Business Standard (and...
5. Virgin India Mobile: Lots of press Fact is that if Richard Branson tries to sell “anything”,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Corruption and nepotism is order of the day. So well, this S Band is a needed for “wireless broadband” and since spectrum is a scarce resource, there is money to be made at public expense. The deal is simple. Create a shell company, buy spectrum (or have it arranged to be transferred) and sell the equity to a foreign investor.

In effect, the foreign investor may be Chinese, American or of any hue or color. By a simple stroke, these guys get a toe hold in the state of security, a backdoor entry for them. In event of war, when communication needs would be paramount, these bastards would simply cut us out.

Hence, despite the huge brouhaha about the charges sticking out, the “zero sum game” of the losses and the “tamasha”, people are fed up. Although, I still don’t see any signs of “mass upheavals” all around barring perhaps the Chinese armed terrorists called as Naxalites and the on slaught of cheap human labor and sex traffickers from Bangladesh.

Therefore, The Statesman has correctly identified the Sunday Special as S Band Spectrum Scam and analyzed it’s ramifications.

I quote:

Devas was conceived in secrecy by an “incestuous” relationship with ISRO. Most of its board members and senior employees are former ISRO personnel who provide inside information. The deal was masterminded by three former scientific secretaries of ISRO. The ISRO headquarters is very much chairman-centric and of late has become a den of corruption and favouritism. They misrepresented facts to the then secretary, department of space, and misled the Space Commission and the Union Cabinet. The fact that a very one-sided contract was signed by Antrix with Devas on 28 January 2005 was never disclosed to the Space Commission or the Union Cabinet.

This is the reason why the news has gained so much prominence.

Here is a shocker (with my emphasis).

The S-band spectrum, defined as radio waves with frequencies that range from 2 GHz to 4 GHz, was allocated by the World Radio-communication Conference for terrestrial mobile communications services in the year 2000. Armed with this confidential information, Devas is supposed to have developed a novel commercial application in association with global experts and approached for S-band spectrum allocation at a throwaway price. Under the legally binding agreement, Devas would pay Antrix a total of $ 300 million over a period of 12 years. The cost of building the two satellites, GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A would be Rs 416 crore. The launching cost is extra. ISRO had approached Arianespace, a European consortium, for the launch of GSAT-6 because of delays in its own satellite launch programme. The hidden benefit of the use of 70 MHz S-band spectrum, according to the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, would be more than Rs. 200 lakh crore.

If this is not good enough, the author has made a clear case of why the guilty needs to be punished.

The emerging requirements of S-band spectrum by strategic government organizations and societal needs were ignored. Defence minister AK Antony woke up to the S-band requirements of the Army, Navy and Air Force only after the Cabinet decided to annul the deal. “The government is now conscious of the necessity of giving the required capability to the armed forces, paramilitary and other strategic organisations,” he said.

The author goes on to provide instances of serious national security lapses.

Between January 2005 and July 2010 Devas was busy selling the capacity to foreign vendors, getting foreign investment board clearances, attempting trials without witnesses and waiting for European technology to mature which they could sell as their own technology. It offloaded 17 per cent of its stakes to Deutsche Telekon (Singapore) for $75 million. In short, attempting bigger frauds and covering their tract as the satellites were getting ready.

Hence the big issue remains of “money laundering” by the established players, loss of paper trail and the likes.

It’s a pathetic scenario indeed.

Related posts:

1. Update on 2G Scam India: Reliance under scanner Anil Ambani must be a worried man. After being summoned...
2. Spectrum: Who wins the game? Shobhana Subramanian of Business Standard has concrete numbers about Reliance...
3. 2G scam India: How it impacts national security This is a rather detailed and longish post on Rajeev’s...
4. 2G Scam India: WTF To be honest, even I don’t know. I quote from...
5. More on Spectrum madness “The best things in life are for free”. For the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Needless to say, it is highly inadequate. I have the right to appeal; but dragging them to Information Commission straight away is not possible. It does not discourage me, to be honest because I had expected this stone walling.

I am taking a legal opinion on this and would update this space soon. I don’t have an access to a scanner; so I would have to snap it up, convert it to a PDF and then upload it somewhere and embed it. Or perhaps directly from image uploading site.

Truly, their attitude sucks. I really don’t know what have they done to deserve my hard earned money to support them.

Related posts:

1. Update on BSNL Broadband RTI I had applied for information under RTI act on wide...
2. BSNL Broadband: Some reasoning behind RTI Of course, I am pissed off with the development. There...
3. Update on BSNL Broadband Service Update on BSNL Broadband Service BSNL has finally rolled on...
4. India Broadband and Telecom Update There is a lot of noise in the media without...
5. What you can do with BSNL Broadband? With BSNL broadband, you can’t play games. You can’t watch...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I have these feelings that Indians have a “trap mentality”. They tend to whine, cry themselves hoarse and generally straighten themselves out in front of people who are deemed to be “charismatic”. In short, they lack self confidence.

Hence, for the past 15+ years, they have been roughshod by the telecom operators because as a collective mass, Indians are bunch of idiots. Exceptions to the rule always apply (the so called outliers in economic parlance) but by and large they would cower and roll on the ground. This ingrained slave mentality is exploited by smart people; those who rise above the scum so as to say. They become “leaders” (or politicians), media managers, CEO’s etc while rest of them become cogs in the system.

This background is essential because it is collective clusterfuck of assholism is the reason why these telecom companies have not been held ransom for better customer care. No wonder, they are content to outsource their core competencies to army of morons sitting on the switchboards. Neither there is dedicated institutional mechanism to hold them accountable. Given the huge volume of mail to TRAI (regulator), about “complaints” from the customers, they are unable to act on them. Or even if they wish to, the confusion about who the real boss really is sucks the whole issue into vortex. Would it be wise to leave let go of the regulation and leave the sector open to “market forces” hoping that competition would ensure correction?

Mobile Number Portability launched nationwide is a step perhaps in that direction. For the first time in years, I have a reason to cheer. And croon about optimism. It is not that the winds of change have started “flowing” in the system; rather a belated first step towards some degree of customer empowerment.

However, the low end customers paying a pittance would not really benefit. If you rake up huge bills on post paid, thats where it’s going to matter. The most. Seriously. No one wants to leave a cash cow; so thats where the its going to affect.

The impact of mobile number portability is going to be felt slowly over the months. Whether or not it affects you as a customer would be clear. For the time being, I am holding my cynicism back. For once.

Related posts:

1. Mobile number portability and TRAI: Suckers As per the media reports, the mobile number portability is...
2. We need mobile number portability I was reading this comment on the Broadband Blog and...
3. Mobile Number Portability (MNP) India: Coming soon? This is one of the most progressive legislations in recent...
4. Insanities in Indian Telecom Insanities in Indian Telecom Much has happened in the past...
5. Indian Telecom: End of the boom? This is what the headlines in Business Standard say. Let...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I wanted to inspect the documents first; however, it would have meant extra paper work and going to their office; I decided against it. All I need is the reply from their office and I shall update it over a period of time here. In case there is any inconsistency, I have the right to appeal and approach the state information commission.

The big issue here is that it does not constitute ways and means to force them to change their policies; it cannot be done specially when they are going to argue that 256 kbps “unlimited” is dirt cheap per month. The bigger issue is whether 2 Mbps can be made the norm or not.

TRAI has refused steadfastly as far as the definition of broadband is concerned. They haven’t given me any “extra information” on that count. They have also not mentioned as to who has defined the broadband. They took the cover of contestable ITU definition that is as vague as it can be. I am sure that BSNL would duck under cover of “regulator” knows it all. Hence, we are back to square one.

Who decides then that 2 Mbps should be bare minimum? I think that RTI should provide us some answers regarding the pricing details and their sources. It’s a long drawn process and companies don’t want to act because it would spoil their status quo. TRAI’s officials are looking at post retirement lucrative options to join a fancy board of some telecom company. It is easier to feed fat a bastard than to service the mass of customers. We all know the story, isn’t it? Specially when Pradeep Baijal was hauled up by the investigative agencies. Backroom manipulations ensured that there was not much drama made out of the “news”. No one knows who Baijal is and frankly no one cares.

It’s a messy country.

Lets wait for their answers to come. The application submitted in their ‘dak section’ would take at least 1 day to wind it’s way towards the orders; the file containing the reply would take another 2-3 days to be dispatched and thereafter it is at the mercy of Department of Posts to deliver it to my premises. Do you know that a speed post (courier) takes 5 days to be delivered WITHIN the same city? Specially when I stay just 3 kms from the exchange and the head post office?

Deva re deva!

Related posts:

1. BSNL Broadband: RTI application submitted I decided to stick around after lunch time today to...
2. BSNL Broadband: Some reasoning behind RTI Of course, I am pissed off with the development. There...
3. Update on BSNL Broadband Service Update on BSNL Broadband Service BSNL has finally rolled on...
4. BSNL Broadband: My stinker Lav Gupta is heading BSNL’s broadband division. I have nothing...
5. BSNL Broadband: Mail from BSNL I have decided to post the mail recieved from Mr...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.