2009 and we are still stuck on 256kbps for broadband

[mgcarley]

make sure you come to pune

You can be sure of it. One of our partners is based there.

----------

Great to hear stuff from a person involved with the foundation of a revolutionary company. Hopefully, this will be the step which will make real broadband affordable and available to all. I like the name Hayai.

Folks, these are the plans as have been put up on Mat Carley's site, look much better than what we have today from other providers.

Hayai FastNet - Landline Broadband - Speed and Data Packages | Hayai

Foo-eh! Can't hide anything from you lot. Please keep in mind that pricing is tentative, subject to change and all that - the government could easily come in and ruin everything (...that is, after all, their job, isn't it? )

 

[agantuk]

Please keep in mind that pricing is tentative, subject to change and all that - the government could easily come in and ruin everything (...that is, after all, their job, isn't it? )

I hope they don't. And as long as the prices don't get multiplied by a factor of 2 or more, they look good.

 

[mgcarley]

I hope they don't. And as long as the prices don't get multiplied by a factor of 2 or more, they look good.

Unless we have to drastically change the bandwidth contention ratio (or rely on peering more than international lines), they shouldn't change too much.

If possible, I'd like to get it down to 999 for 1 Mbit - at least as an introductory offer.

 

[saurabh28]

I think ISPs in India should provide 8 mbps (Unlimited) @ below Rs.2500/- per month.
-------
See what ISPs in UK are offering........
SKY Broadband : http://packages.sky.com/surf/

 

[mgcarley]

I think ISPs in India should provide 8 mbps (Unlimited) @ below Rs.2500/- per month.
-------
See what ISPs in UK are offering........
SKY Broadband : Wireless Broadband Deals & Unlimited Broadband - Join Now

I am well aware of what ISPs in the UK and Europe offer - I have recently moved to India from Finland (and before that France).

As nice as such a scenario would be, there are several things preventing this for the immediate future:

1. Most content accessed in India is on US-based servers. As such, this places stress on our international links - which are not cheap. At a 1:50 contention ratio, just to cover the cost of a 155Mbps pipe (just short of USD33000/month), we would need to charge at least USD34/Rs1,700, and even then, in effect, this means 7750 users would be sharing a 155Mbps line.

If you wanted that at 1:30 (4650 users) or 1:8 (1240 users), you'd be looking at USD56/Rs2,800 and USD210/Rs10,500 respectively - and thats assuming no-one wanted to make any profit or pay salaries to workers, and doesn't count other things like license fees to the TRAI or infrastructure.

2. There is not much hosting done in India itself. Unlike the US, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Japan and Korea where there are significant amounts of locally hosted data and large data centers.

3. Even with locally hosted data, there is the issue of a little organization called NIXI, who currently have a formula whereby ISPs are charged at Rs 50 per gigabyte incoming (although outgoing subtracts Rs 50 per gigabyte from the bill, so effectively the end price is still about Rs 35 per gigabyte).

If I had as few as 1,000 customers downloading say only 80GB of traffic per month each through NIXI, I would have to pay 80000*50 or 40 lakhs per month, minus say 20GB of upload traffic (so minus 10 lakhs), I still have to pay 30 lakhs. 30 lakhs NOT including the 16.5 lakhs per month for a separate 155Mbps line equals 46.5 lakhs per month - so for 1000 customers, thats Rs 4,650 by itself.

Bad business, especially considering an 8Mbps connection has the potential to allow 2,000GB every month, and some people MIGHT abuse this.

4. In Europe, there are several other benefits available, mostly that the European equivalients of NIXI are far less expensive, as last time I checked, they don't get charged by the GB, and secondly buying international connectivity is cheaper due to distance. With the international cables here, you pay by the kilometer, so a link from Mumbai to Singapore works out at about USD400k per year.

Finland to Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany or UK, however, is significantly less than half the distance of a BOM-SIN route, therefore far less expensive to lease. All have very large data centers and internet exchanges, especially Amsterdam and London as well, which really helps.

My ISP will be offering an 8Mbps plan for an as-yet-unfinalized price, but it will be more than Rs2,500 - although we plan to allow 80GB of international downloads (and unlimited in-network), which we think is reasonable (I am looking for opinions on this - PM me).

Additionally, NIXI have told me that the price is being reduced, but by how much and when they have not mentioned.

 

[saurabh28]

Look where India stands

 

[Raditz]

Thanks for the detailed explanation mgcarley, your post is very informative.U know.. its kind of funny when our ISP's use ad-words like "lightening fast" and B.S like that.One more thing that still leaves me somewhat confused is how come Pak has better & affordable plans than ours.Btw I read that our ispai had approached F.M nd requested removal of all taxes for ISPs considering how the Internet is a big part in a modern economy, wonder if that brings any change.

 

[mgcarley]

Thanks for the detailed explanation mgcarley, your post is very informative.
U know.. its kind of funny when our ISP's use ad-words like "lightening fast" and B.S like that.


Agreed. Their use of such terminology is somewhat frivolous - we simply need to ask "Lightening fast... compared to what exactly? A Commodore 300bps modem from the 80's, perhaps!"

One more thing that still leaves me somewhat confused is how come Pak has better & affordable plans than ours.
Btw I read that our ispai had approached F.M nd requested removal of all taxes for ISPs considering how the Internet is a big part in a modern economy, wonder if that brings any change.

I would imagine that ISPs in Pakistan don't have to pay Rs 50/GB for data transfer when peering with each other, and secondly, they probably don't have to "donate" 8% of their revenue to the TRAI.

I can't confirm this, as I have not really compared India to Pakistan at that level (although I am aware that they have better access) - I've only been trying to figure out how I can bring Indian access to the same level as Europe!

 

[Fiber_Optic]

nice work mgcarley, most of us have always wondered why indian isps seem this greedy, i guess this puts things in perspective. I still think they are greedy , but much less greedy than i previously thought .

 

[saurabh28]

I am well aware of what ISPs in the UK and Europe offer - I have recently moved to India from Finland (and before that France).

As nice as such a scenario would be, there are several things preventing this for the immediate future:

1. Most content accessed in India is on US-based servers. As such, this places stress on our international links - which are not cheap. At a 1:50 contention ratio, just to cover the cost of a 155Mbps pipe (just short of USD33000/month), we would need to charge at least USD34/Rs1,700, and even then, in effect, this means 7750 users would be sharing a 155Mbps line.

If you wanted that at 1:30 (4650 users) or 1:8 (1240 users), you'd be looking at USD56/Rs2,800 and USD210/Rs10,500 respectively - and thats assuming no-one wanted to make any profit or pay salaries to workers, and doesn't count other things like license fees to the TRAI or infrastructure.

2. There is not much hosting done in India itself. Unlike the US, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Japan and Korea where there are significant amounts of locally hosted data and large data centers.

3. Even with locally hosted data, there is the issue of a little organization called NIXI, who currently have a formula whereby ISPs are charged at Rs 50 per gigabyte incoming (although outgoing subtracts Rs 50 per gigabyte from the bill, so effectively the end price is still about Rs 35 per gigabyte).

If I had as few as 1,000 customers downloading say only 80GB of traffic per month each through NIXI, I would have to pay 80000*50 or 40 lakhs per month, minus say 20GB of upload traffic (so minus 10 lakhs), I still have to pay 30 lakhs. 30 lakhs NOT including the 16.5 lakhs per month for a separate 155Mbps line equals 46.5 lakhs per month - so for 1000 customers, thats Rs 4,650 by itself.

Bad business, especially considering an 8Mbps connection has the potential to allow 2,000GB every month, and some people MIGHT abuse this.

4. In Europe, there are several other benefits available, mostly that the European equivalients of NIXI are far less expensive, as last time I checked, they don't get charged by the GB, and secondly buying international connectivity is cheaper due to distance. With the international cables here, you pay by the kilometer, so a link from Mumbai to Singapore works out at about USD400k per year.

Finland to Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany or UK, however, is significantly less than half the distance of a BOM-SIN route, therefore far less expensive to lease. All have very large data centers and internet exchanges, especially Amsterdam and London as well, which really helps.

My ISP will be offering an 8Mbps plan for an as-yet-unfinalized price, but it will be more than Rs2,500 - although we plan to allow 80GB of international downloads (and unlimited in-network), which we think is reasonable (I am looking for opinions on this - PM me).

Additionally, NIXI have told me that the price is being reduced, but by how much and when they have not mentioned.

Thanks mgcarley for your explanation. I think taxes on ISPs should be removed so that ISPs can serve us with better plans.