Sunil Mittal gives up on cheap broadband in India: We are giving up on Airtel Broadband coz of FUP

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For starters i'm thinking of apps the govt could put out.
- Money transfer like m-pesa in Kenya, Think making payments & receiving benefits using just the cellphone to anyone in the country.

India already has this, I think.

- Do your taxes and submit returns, in the US this was possible over ten years back and did not need any broadband at all.

In short any kind of interaction with the govt that could be done electronically instead of face to face. The govt would be the catalyst for this kind of model.


This would be handy. I do this for my government interaction in NZ and Finland already (companies office, taxes etc)

Usually i'd let the market sort it out but in this country, that might take much longer than if the govt gets involved at the outset. The govt will not invest in something that does not provide an adequate return. If the govt can show that ppl will be using this service to make payments to them then it might be an easier sell to subsidise the rollout.


I'm rather of the opinion that even the government would rather there wasn't a proper electronic record of any transactions... otherwise the babus might have to start declaring payoffs!

The problem of course is the govt does not think this way (yet), the only reason you see more e-governance schemes & claims to better transparency is due to world bank loans avalied by various city councils across the country. These councils cannot get loans from state banks because banks will not loan to them on terms they can comply with, in short city councils are not profitable customers for state banks to loan to. But these councils can get loans from the world bank and one of the conditions the world bank sets is better e-governance and transparency.

What i'm unsure about is if the govt makes prices low and keeps them that way whether it would be profitable enough for private companies to take over in the future. The tradeoff is larger volume at lower per user cost. Artifically interfering in the market is always a bad thing even when well managed and could lead to unintended consequences.

Well... it could. Due to fairly lax privacy laws, you can get anyones tax details in most Scandinavian countries just by sending an SMS (Finland, Sweden and Norway that I know of... not sure about Denmark... probably possible there too).
 
the kind of population densities we have here in india... wireless broadband would cost as much as wireline broadband.



This is a wrong statement. In densely populated urban areas like Delhi, wireless can be even more cost effective. Telecom companies in big cities already have thousands of towers all connected with fiber. They can just put equipment for wireless broadband on those towers and start taking the advantage of fiber for backhaul thus resulting in faster and cheaper rollout of networks. Most cellphone companies already have large number of towers in high density areas such as Connaught Place, so they already know how to take care of high population density by putting up more towers.

On the other hand most towers in rural areas are not connected by fiber. They are using wireless backhaul. That is the reason even GPRS doesn't work properly in most rural areas of U.P. To take wireless broadband to those rural areas, they will have to first connect all those towers in rural areas with fiber first. So connecting rural areas will be costlier and more time consuming.
 
India already has this, I think.
No, it does not because the RBI wil not allow it as they would be no way to keep track of the payments. The problem is they require a way to uniquely identify ppl. Once UID takes off (if it ever does) then it might become possible. Currently you can indirectly transfer small amounts like pre-paid credits but its not signficant enough to matter.

I'm rather of the opinion that even the government would rather there wasn't a proper electronic record of any transactions... otherwise the babus might have to start declaring payoffs!
If you have a service i need and i can provide a service you need, the simplest way to avoid a paper trail is barter. This idea (or variants thereof) can be scaled as required so long as care is taken not to attract attention :)

Otherwise the trend in the last decade has been towards more transparency, PAN cards to keep tabs on citizens versa RTI for the govt. I do not see any reason for this to reverse in the future. If anything it could become more invasive, and likewise vis-a-vis govt.

Well... it could. Due to fairly lax privacy laws, you can get anyones tax details in most Scandinavian countries just by sending an SMS (Finland, Sweden and Norway that I know of... not sure about Denmark... probably possible there too).
Security will always be a challenge here, maybe as time goes on we learn how to do these things in a more secure fashion. But if you look at the credit card industry, they have over a $billion in fraud each year but its dwarfed by legal transactions that are 100's of times greater.
 
No, it does not because the RBI wil not allow it as they would be no way to keep track of the payments. The problem is they require a way to uniquely identify ppl. Once UID takes off (if it ever does) then it might become possible. Currently you can indirectly transfer small amounts like pre-paid credits but its not signficant enough to matter.


That's what I must have been thinking of.

If you have a service i need and i can provide a service you need, the simplest way to avoid a paper trail is barter. This idea (or variants thereof) can be scaled as required so long as care is taken not to attract attention :)

Otherwise the trend in the last decade has been towards more transparency, PAN cards to keep tabs on citizens versa RTI for the govt. I do not see any reason for this to reverse in the future. If anything it could become more invasive, and likewise vis-a-vis govt.



Let's hope so. But you know... being cynical one can imagine the politicians will flout/bend the rules to hide whatever they can. This is not, of course, unique to India.

Security will always be a challenge here, maybe as time goes on we learn how to do these things in a more secure fashion. But if you look at the credit card industry, they have over a $billion in fraud each year but its dwarfed by legal transactions that are 100's of times greater.

True, but unlike most of Scandinavia, one can imagine that security will be an important issue because statistically speaking any system is more likely to see actual abuse in a country like India (but again, such things are not limited just to India).

Also unlike credit cards which carry insurance policies (what do you think all those fees are for?), governmental organizations are unlikely to be of any help if your personal information is misused - at least not in a hurry.

However, one can only hope that a good system is implemented which can save us from having to take a day off just to file some paperwork.

---------- Post added at 08:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:30 AM ----------

This is a wrong statement. In densely populated urban areas like Delhi, wireless can be even more cost effective. Telecom companies in big cities already have thousands of towers all connected with fiber. They can just put equipment for wireless broadband on those towers and start taking the advantage of fiber for backhaul thus resulting in faster and cheaper rollout of networks. Most cellphone companies already have large number of towers in high density areas such as Connaught Place, so they already know how to take care of high population density by putting up more towers.


Cost effective doesn't necessarily mean good though. The fact that 0.5% failure rates on cellphone calls is considered "acceptable" means that the standards are low enough already. It could be equally or even more effective to utilize the fiber that currently supplies the towers in urban areas for a wired service.

On the other hand most towers in rural areas are not connected by fiber. They are using wireless backhaul. That is the reason even GPRS doesn't work properly in most rural areas of U.P. To take wireless broadband to those rural areas, they will have to first connect all those towers in rural areas with fiber first. So connecting rural areas will be costlier and more time consuming.

*Some* aren't. You'd be surprised just how much fiber is criss-crossing the country. And cost is relative - it's pretty cheap to lay cable in the middle of nowhere, but you have to lay more of it to get anywhere, so it evens out in a way.
 
wireless broadband :D you guys need to read about how AT&T is struggling in USA with their mobile services on iPhone on 3g networks just because of too many customers on their networks :D this congestion alone has resulted in them discontinuing the unlimited plans that cost i think USD 60 per month.
 
wireless broadband :D

you guys need to read about how AT&T is struggling in USA with their mobile services on iPhone on 3g networks just because of too many customers on their networks :D

this congestion alone has resulted in them discontinuing the unlimited plans that cost i think USD 60 per month.

Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike I was saying. We've been told we should allow a maximum of 8 (count it, 8) users on per WiMax AP.
 

But you know... being cynical one can imagine the politicians will flout/bend the rules to hide whatever they can. This is not, of course, unique to India.
That's what the opposition parties are for, now if they're on the take as well things get more uncertain. I was told in the Tamil state the opposition gets a 25% take on every deal cut, so things might be harder there to catch. I'm not sure how widespread this kind of 'agreement' is elsewhere in the country.

Also unlike credit cards which carry insurance policies (what do you think all those fees are for?), governmental organizations are unlikely to be of any help if your personal information is misused - at least not in a hurry.
IT act 2008 might be of help here, if the number of ppl affected is signficant there will be quite an outcry, not to mention legal avenues to pursue.
 
yes sure , that why i need to wake up at 5am to downloads movies and other stuff , because at that time i get 2mbps absouloutely free. and it happens since 2005, when i passed my senior secondary , hey god , broadband is really cheap , but that is not a way to provide it, we have keep tourcher ourself by wake up early and sleep early , Hope and hope and just hope , in some few years more i used to get 2mbps unlimited in daytime too , In 2006 when i joined broadband forum , we used to talk about korea and japan , where speed was 100mbps , now they cross 1Gbps , and in UK , fiber optics are begin, and we at India , just dreaming of 8mbps bsnl broadband . Although i m very satisfied with there service and speed , but sticking with just 2mbps is not not fair
 
they dnt even reset the FUP now on their own after finish of billing cycle.......na man its clear AIRTEL suks..keep on calling them on cust. no. to get their attention that ur fup is not reset they send some stupid engineer who tells u have virus in ur pc nd end of story even when norton virus scan gives the pc clean chit the engineer with his eyes some how manages to scan 2 TB sys on his own in 2sec on arriving......pathetic...liars.....nd now airtel is popping in browser too which is just worse.....
 
Airtel support is pathetic now. They are dumping old customers and changing plans as they wish. They only want customers who will pay high charges without actually using them. i.e they would be happy if a customer bought 2 mb plan and only uses 2-3 gb per month. I have been a customer for more than 4 years, and I have never experienced thier customer service being so pathetic. And in Hyderabad , they only offer 2 Mb plans. Beam cable is better option.
 

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