That's the bigger job done.
In terms of distance, yeah, maybe. In terms of complexity... not even close.
I don't think Railtel are, at all, interested in the last-mile fiber - instead they will stick to backhaul and let companies like you do the rest of the job.
Only thing is that they don't want you to know it, so that may be their excuse to tackle the situation.
They have a retail arm. I'm not sure why their service is not available through cablewalas in places like Mumbai and Delhi though... although unfortunately they no longer have anything like unlimited 32mbit/s.
Simply speaking, from Railtel's perspective, its much much easier for them to deal with few company wallahs and negotiate in backhaul deals then dealing with irate customers and all the mess that brings with that.
Yeah. Let BSNL do that.
See BSNL for instance. Even though its Sarkari, I know some of the honest guys they get literally harassed by irate customers. The cunning ones are the ones who are never in office so additional load is on these guys.
That doesn't sound like an Indian government organization at all!! [/sarcasm]
I know of atleast 3-4 colleagues for whom they need ubiquotous broadband for their work. One guy literally shut his shop for a day and just sat in front of the concerned officer's chair. BSNL had been playing with him for the last 6 months or so.
I've heard similar stories.
The above cases tell/share of both the potential within the market-space as well as the need for having motivated and better technical and customer support guys. Getting good people who can play with technology, be flexible in their approach towards customers, have a good bedside manner (in doctor/medicine speak) is what will crack the market.
We like playing with technology.
Most of the companies and the people I have seen don't see the need to uphold any company's values. Most of them are just looking for their next paycheck which is ok I guess. Thinking customers as idiots or cheating them is a different story altogether.
I've got the CVs of the reps I ended up hiring in a folder. I couldn't even tell you what's written on those CVs, but it was on the basis of my casual conversations with those people that they got the job. I know enough "paper MCSEs" (people who are certified but don't know jack) and about IT schools in India to be wary of most graduates *actual* abilities.
Unfortunately, enough customers are either idiots or trying to cheat you that it's a warranted concern. You've probably seen evidence of that on some of the other threads - people suggesting they would buy a residential 100mbit/s flat-rate plan (even if it were at a price which *everyone* could afford) and then on-selling it to neighbours or setting up a cyber cafe... that's not cool - that could even be described as malicious intent - especially if they are not licensed, because we'd probably end up receiving more of the wrath from the regulatory side than they would.
On the whole though, I'm expecting that we'll mostly have customers not unlike Sushubh who just want fast speeds and who will pay for what they use, and hopefully the prices of the flat-rate plans should be enough to put off all but the most determined network abusers (not that we're keeping prices artificially high - I think they'll be a bargain considering what they are!)
