National Broadband Plan, TRAI and the Indian broadband customer

[iChaitanya]

Because 1. Consumers don't make them much money. 2. Capacity theoretically costs money: why "give" to their consumers when they could sell to leased-line customers and other ISPs... why sell twice as much at the same price (leaving less available for later) when you can sell half as much and make more money when the customer wants to upgrade... even if you give him a discount?

But the silly thing is, SMW4 is about 5 years old now - half way through it's expected ROI life, but I suspect that whatever it cost to build ($500 million) has already been made back despite it's actual utilization rates of well below 50% - going by my previous calculations, they only need to charge about $5.30/mbit/month but they charge 20x that much for smaller buyers (up to 622mbit/s I think) or about 12x that much for the high capacity buyers (10Gbit/s+).

Not to mention that the cables in question usually serve 10+ other countries as well, not just India. India would be one of the largest single consumers out of most of the countries these cables serve, though.

Both Tata and Bharti have got their own India-Singapore cables (i2i and TIC) which are operating at ~8 and ~5Tbit/s respectively, but again, utilization must be very low, and I still maintain that if they dropped the costs on this route, they'd still realize similar income - IMO, they should simply multiply the capacities that people are contracted to by 5, and with all this surplus bandwidth ISPs could start offering full-speed ADSL2+ services for no additional cost - or increase the speeds/fups of "unlimited" plans and make a few consumers happy.

So, I guess we can conclude that: It doesn't matter whether 1% is lit up or say 50% is lit up - profits are gonna be the same. So, why offer more bandwidth if there's not much difference in profit? Makes sense. Evil.

I just had one more doubt... I saw you mentioning this point many times on IBF... that only some 50% of SEA-ME-WE 3/4 is lit up and not the whole thing. What I'm wondering is... is this the case all over the world? Is this the case with cables connecting... say Europe and US?

Thanks for all the info!

 

[kunalgautam]

Pain in hand no, pain in back and neck (and a numb arse) from sitting for endless hours in front of my computer, yeah, sometimes. That's why my twitter followers occasionally see messages like this one: Twitter
Haha

 

[warthog]

so i finally found google's push for net neutrality
http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/ConsultationPapers/209/39.pdf
The vibrant ecosystem of innovation that lies at the heart of the Internet has fueled unimagined economic, social, and personal growth. Given that an open, nondiscriminatory Internet is the optimal outcome, the critical task is to determine the appropriate legal, regulatory, and/or market mechanisms to achieve that result. In developing its National Broadband Plan, TRAI should keep this goal firmly in mind.
 In designing the regulatory environment for a National Broadband Network, TRAI should consider the ways in which broadband providers’ practices can threaten the fundamental openness of the Internet. Consideration should be given to promoting a regulatory environment that protects user choice, competition and innovation on the Internet.

---------- Post added at 01:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:25 PM ----------

trai on net neutrality in 2006
http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/ConsultationPapers/101/consultation27dec06.pdf
para 3.6.1
3.6 ISSUE OF NET NEUTRALITY:
3.6.1 Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be able to access all content they view and all applications they use on the Internet without being discriminated by Internet service
provider(s)/ access provider(s). The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its inception. Indeed, it is this neutrality that has allowed many companies (application service providers, content providers etc.) to launch, grow, and innovate. Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In US, Network operators want to charge Internet content providers for enhanced IP services, while Net neutrality proponents say regulations are needed to prevent abuse by the
Net's gatekeepers. There have already been instances of Internet providers blocking access to Internet applications that allow you to access your company's network, share files with peers - even
send large attachments (like digital photos) in your email. Internet providers are not prohibited from discriminating against the content available using their services; therefore they could legally restrict access to any website or Internet application they choose whenever it suits their bottom-line economic. The broadband carriers want US Congress's permission to determine what content gets to you first and fastest.
3.6.2 The situation may also rise in India as Internet access providers may use their market power to discriminate against competing applications and/or contents. 3.6.3 The issue of net neutrality in the long term can threaten popularity of Public Internet based Internet telephony and similar other applications as all the intermediate Internet providers may start asking commercial agreements in absence of which they may refuse to carry the content and provide desired quality of service. The future developments are likely to have new applications and contents. The business models of ISPs are concentrated around useful application. In this background views of stake holders are required whether regulatory intervention is needed to ensure net neutrality in India in times to come or it may be left to market forces.

---------- Post added at 01:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:30 PM ----------

isp responses on net neutrality(lmao no mention of net neutrality by isps-circa feb 2007)
http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/ConsultationPapers/107/comments6feb07CN.pdf

---------- Post added at 01:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:37 PM ----------

reading responses from airtel and reliance consultancy paper(dec 2010)
reliance wants 256k andd airtel wants 512k.

---------- Post added at 01:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:48 PM ----------

bsnl wants
Yes. Broadband should have minimum speed for download as below:
o 512 Kbps by Dec, 2010
o 2 Mbps by Dec. 2011
o 4 Mbps by Dec. 2014.

---------- Post added at 01:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:51 PM ----------

from consumers advocay
2mbps
http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/ConsultationPapers/209/12.pdf

---------- Post added at 01:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:52 PM ----------

otherswants 1mbps
http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/ConsultationPapers/209/13.pdf

---------- Post added at 02:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:53 PM ----------

admin plz merge this thread with your trai national broadband plan.Even after 4 yrs TRAI has yet to take action on isps violating net neutrality

 

[kalyan89]

Broadband may soon get cheaper

Broadband may soon get cheaper - The Economic Times



We don't want cheap broadband but want unlimited High speed connections like that in Germany and US. The definition of broadband must be revisited upgrading the minimum connection speed to atleast 4Mbps without any free usage policies.
These BSNL people instead of reducing prices of 256Kbps and 512Kbps connections can introduce 2Mbps unlimited connection at 1000 bugs a month

 

[greatsadiq]

Rightly Said...

 

[Sushubh]

the report does not talk anything about reducing the cost of bandwidth. it only talks about the internal network in the country from what i see. so what are we going to see? 100mbps connections from BSNL with 10GB data transfer for 1000 rupees?

 

[mgcarley]

We don't want cheap broadband but want unlimited High speed connections like that in Germany and US. The definition of broadband must be revisited upgrading the minimum connection speed to atleast 4Mbps without any free usage policies.
These BSNL people instead of reducing prices of 256Kbps and 512Kbps connections can introduce 2Mbps unlimited connection at 1000 bugs a month

While I agree that 256 should go away and 512 should replace it at that price point, for the rest it all once again it comes down to how the network is used in each respective country.

To cite your examples of the US and Germany, US Internet usage tends to stay within the US (and the US is also one of the WORST yardsticks to measure quality and value for money of Internet services, as I've mentioned in other threads), while European internet usage on the whole tends to stick around Europe (and with capacity to the US from Europe being so cheap, the cost factor doesn't really come in to play).

On the other side of the coin, countries such as NZ, Australia and India have large percentages of the traffic going overseas (to the US) on routes that are not particularly cheap... for some reason Pacific routes are priced much higher than Atlantic ones.

Furthermore, while faster than India, a connection without an FUP is rare in both Germany and the US, and in the US, it's not even significantly faster in many places. Many "broadband" users are still suffering on old ADSL connections at less than 6 mbit/s, and only a relatively small percentage of the population are able to avail the truely high-speed options from CableVision, Verizon FiOS and so on, but no matter the speed of those connections, with most traffic in that country being domestic as I mentioned, it's also very very cheap for the ISPs to provide this speed, as they pay only a couple of dollars per mbit/s whether for peering or for the international capacity, whereas in India the International capacity is far more expensive (well over $100/mbit/month for me) and peering pricing is calculated in an incredibly stupid way.

As a result of all this, realistically with the current wholesale prices as they are (even if they're 75% LESS than what I pay for bandwidth), I don't even think it would be economically feasible for BSNL to introduce 2mbit/s "unlimited" at Rs1000 per month, however I do sincerely hope that the ceiling tariffs on wholesale bandwidth falls significantly soon so that such options may become a possibility.

And what is this obsession with "unlimited"? Unlimited is a farce, and as a business model, it's flawed. I've made the argument before that you can't get unlimited electricity or unlimited phonecalls (especially not without a FUP), and almost nowhere in the world can you get a truely unlimited Internet connection, much less without a FUP - the exceptions here might be places like Finland but otherwise it's few and far between.

Something I've been saying on other threads relating to this new TRAI initiative is this: You all should stop worrying about the minimum speeds being prescribed by the TRAI and simply see how fast you can get it.

Two options should be given to users:
1. Flat-rate pricing at various speeds (e.g. 512, 1, 2, 4 mbit/s). If a FUP has to be applied, it should be fair and the plans should be priced competitively rather than raping your wallets as it does now.
2. Pay for what you use (at a reasonable rate) with no speed limit (up to 8 or 24mbit/s on ADSL/ADSL2+ or 30+mbit/s on cable).

 

[Sushubh]

512kbps is not going to change much if FUP malware remains connected with all the packages offered by ISPs like Airtel. of course, the minimum speeds would double in that case (at least that's what it looks like) but no one is stopping airtel from killing all unlimited plans altogether. heh.

 

[mgcarley]

512kbps is not going to change much if FUP malware remains connected with all the packages offered by ISPs like Airtel.

of course, the minimum speeds would double in that case (at least that's what it looks like) but no one is stopping airtel from killing all unlimited plans altogether. heh.

I wouldn't say it's malware. Just not as fair as it should be.

 

[Sushubh]

hehe. so in its current form it is a malware.