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Unlimited broadband plans: what is the future?
- Thread starter Asterix
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I felt to cry reading this.
Someone has done his homework proficiently. Apparently.
Not apparently but thoroughly
Indians were taken as "coolies" and they remain entrapped in that mentality
But apart from that, Mathew, I wonder what is going to be your "big" advertising pitch? If you believe the statistics much of the Internet access is used for emailing and apparently Facebook (or other versions of social networking).
It would need a massive "education" campaign, stave off the attacks from the local cable operators or entrenched henchmen or even opposition from the ISP associations (though they are a rag tag group of idiots). This is because your promised speeds at the prices are beyond what they can come up with or even would want to invest in. I appreciate your efforts to engage us in a lively conversation but beyond that the specifics can get very demeaning in this country.
Let's face it this way. I wonder how many customers does Airtel have on 8 Mbps plans (Impatient plans as they call it) assuming the top end of the market they are operating in. They have focussed only on the key cities in India where they felt that returns on investment could justify the expensive proposition of laying down infrastructure. As I raised the issue of "dumb pipes", my contention is that ISP's have sorely failed to source content for themselves.
They have failed to tie up with movie production houses, failed to aggressively promote IPTV (and the one which we have is quite pathetic and deficient), value added services next to zilch and yada yada. The prime example is that of Reliance Stores and it ventured in during that time when dial up ruled the roost. It had everything going for it. Desktop games and connected to a central game server, Ankit Fadia's classes (Oh Boy!) and even video conferencing. It advertised heavily in local areas and it remained jam packed in the initial few years.
After a while, the same thing is tottering and in ruins. I had to go there for some reason recently and I was appalled at what had happened.
But then, unlimited Internet has it's audience in the forums; the same set of people would not be able to form the critical mass unless there is a COMPELLING proposition to shift to a new operator. No one likes to change their ISP's because it is universal mindset to continue with a known set of issues (and problems) rather than shift over to a new source of worry (or tension).
This is something I am keen to know.
At the same time, I am not a pessimist but l am keen to learn your approach towards these issues which I am sure you would face down the line when it actually goes live.
Someone has done his homework proficiently. Apparently.
Not apparently but thoroughly
Indians were taken as "coolies" and they remain entrapped in that mentality But apart from that, Mathew, I wonder what is going to be your "big" advertising pitch? If you believe the statistics much of the Internet access is used for emailing and apparently Facebook (or other versions of social networking).
It would need a massive "education" campaign, stave off the attacks from the local cable operators or entrenched henchmen or even opposition from the ISP associations (though they are a rag tag group of idiots). This is because your promised speeds at the prices are beyond what they can come up with or even would want to invest in. I appreciate your efforts to engage us in a lively conversation but beyond that the specifics can get very demeaning in this country.
Let's face it this way. I wonder how many customers does Airtel have on 8 Mbps plans (Impatient plans as they call it) assuming the top end of the market they are operating in. They have focussed only on the key cities in India where they felt that returns on investment could justify the expensive proposition of laying down infrastructure. As I raised the issue of "dumb pipes", my contention is that ISP's have sorely failed to source content for themselves.
They have failed to tie up with movie production houses, failed to aggressively promote IPTV (and the one which we have is quite pathetic and deficient), value added services next to zilch and yada yada. The prime example is that of Reliance Stores and it ventured in during that time when dial up ruled the roost. It had everything going for it. Desktop games and connected to a central game server, Ankit Fadia's classes (Oh Boy!) and even video conferencing. It advertised heavily in local areas and it remained jam packed in the initial few years.
After a while, the same thing is tottering and in ruins. I had to go there for some reason recently and I was appalled at what had happened.
But then, unlimited Internet has it's audience in the forums; the same set of people would not be able to form the critical mass unless there is a COMPELLING proposition to shift to a new operator. No one likes to change their ISP's because it is universal mindset to continue with a known set of issues (and problems) rather than shift over to a new source of worry (or tension).
This is something I am keen to know.
At the same time, I am not a pessimist but l am keen to learn your approach towards these issues which I am sure you would face down the line when it actually goes live.
mgcarley
Founder, Hayai Broadband
Not apparently but thoroughly Indians were taken as "coolies" and they remain entrapped in that mentality
But apart from that, Mathew, I wonder what is going to be your "big" advertising pitch? If you believe the statistics much of the Internet access is used for emailing and apparently Facebook (or other versions of social networking).
For folks who want to use it "just" for applications like social networking and whatnot, then our selling point will probably be value more than anything else - we charge a lot less for data and/or "extra data" once the quota has been used up, so if users find themselves using over their quotas frequently, then a switch to us (most likely our "lite" service) should save them at least some money, since even our lowest "lite" plan offers 10GB of usage per month (and competes with similar plans that offer between 1 and 3GB per month).
For those who use things like Youtube a lot and get frustrated by shoddy online video streaming, then we would hope to solve that problem on either the lite or full product, and for heavy downloaders we have 2 value propositions: lack of FUP and faster speeds than anyone else - at somewhat more reasonable (by comparison) prices.
My current goal is to introduce 100mbit/s flat-rate at under Rs5k per month, with other flat-rate speeds (5, 10, 20 or 30 & 50mbit/s) available at prices between Rs1,200 and Rs3,999.
It would need a massive "education" campaign, stave off the attacks from the local cable operators or entrenched henchmen or even opposition from the ISP associations (though they are a rag tag group of idiots). This is because your promised speeds at the prices are beyond what they can come up with or even would want to invest in. I appreciate your efforts to engage us in a lively conversation but beyond that the specifics can get very demeaning in this country.
Staving off cablewalas and whatnot is a challenge - I see these guys as unnecessary and in some ways a hinderance to a solid and consistant broadband experience in India.
In addition, sometimes they even fight amongst themselves - some of them are very territorial and have been described to me as... psychotic and/or sociopathic... and greedy.
So end of the day, in many cases I don't think it's necessarily about "wanting" to be able to invest in infrastructure, it's about actually putting it in without it being vandalised or ripped up and sold off. Fortunately, Fiber doesn't have much resale value, so this is slightly less of a concern for us, but it's still something to be concerned about!
In reality, ISPs need to work together - many currently do not. Tata belittles Reliance who belittles Bharti who belittles Reliance who belittles Tata who belittles Bharti who belittles Tata, yet when in the presence of one, mentioning something about the other often brings about some form of cautious optimism about what is happening: kind of like "yeah, that's awesome, but it might fail".
Furthermore, they don't properly peer with each other, causing International capacity to be used unnecessarily, and whoever thought it would be a good idea to charge per GB at NIXI should be taken to India Gate and subjected to whatever punishment the broadband-hungry population of India can think of!
I've been bitching about all this since early 2009, and one of my good friend, Tarun, since 2007:
Why NIXI is such a failure | Tarun Dua
Mythbusting the assumptions of the ISP ecosystem in India with regard to current F/AUP changes | Tarun Dua
Let's face it this way. I wonder how many customers does Airtel have on 8 Mbps plans (Impatient plans as they call it) assuming the top end of the market they are operating in. They have focussed only on the key cities in India where they felt that returns on investment could justify the expensive proposition of laying down infrastructure.
Airtel and Tata both have fast plans - 30, 50 and 100mbit/s, so speed is nothing new. But they charge a bloody fortune for the same - Tata charges 3,500 for 100mbit/s but they allow just 10GB of usage, making that virtually useless! Airtel charges 7999 and 8999 and offers I think 200GB, which is at least reasonable, but still too expensive for anyone perhaps except a medium-sized business.
But as you've mentioned, all these plans have very limited coverage areas, and while the Tata offer is available in a small area of Mumbai, the Airtel offers to my knowledge still are not, but the opposite is true of Delhi.
As I raised the issue of "dumb pipes", my contention is that ISP's have sorely failed to source content for themselves.
This is not necessarily by choice. As we know, the peering situation in India is very, very sad (to put it lightly), which causes many problems with the whole neutrality issue. If a content provider wants to send content to users in India, he must procure bandwidth from all of the major ISPs, often at great expense, causing this to be somewhat cost-prohibitive. Otherwise that content ends up becoming available "exclusively on ISP X", which is not a good thing.
They have failed to tie up with movie production houses, failed to aggressively promote IPTV (and the one which we have is quite pathetic and deficient), value added services next to zilch and yada yada. The prime example is that of Reliance Stores and it ventured in during that time when dial up ruled the roost. It had everything going for it. Desktop games and connected to a central game server, Ankit Fadia's classes (Oh Boy!) and even video conferencing. It advertised heavily in local areas and it remained jam packed in the initial few years.
After a while, the same thing is tottering and in ruins. I had to go there for some reason recently and I was appalled at what had happened.
Whoops to them. Obviously the ability to obtain 3-play service including IPTV, ILD AS WELL AS NLD between customers using VOIP (I hope) and super-awesome broadband, good pre-configured (and remotely configurable) modems might help.
But then, unlimited Internet has it's audience in the forums; the same set of people would not be able to form the critical mass unless there is a COMPELLING proposition to shift to a new operator. No one likes to change their ISP's because it is universal mindset to continue with a known set of issues (and problems) rather than shift over to a new source of worry (or tension).
This is something I am keen to know.
I agree, but we can create a compelling offer, with the assistance of people here - the idea being give the people what they want. So far, by comparison the offers are compelling - currently we have 5mbit/s at Rs2499, 10mbit/s at Rs3499 both flat-rate.
This may be out of reach for a large number of people who desperately want such plans, but without FUPs, provides significantly better value for money for those who can and will pay that much (until such time as, of course, the price does come down, which, naturally, involves growth on our part and therefore purchasing significantly more bandwidth).
The thing is, though, flat-rate as a business model is utterly rubbish.
Seriously, in what other market can you obtain "all you can eat" for a fixed-price? You can't get that with electricity, water, or telephone calls. Everyone is happy to pay per minute for phone calls, but not per GB for internet. Why is that?
To use another metaphor, rarely can you find a buffet of food that will give you literally "all you can eat" - but even if you can find such a buffet, there are significant limits for the cost of actually providing "all you can eat" to everyone in the restaurant, because the restaurant is limited by seating and the physical capacity of stomachs which can only consume so much in the few-hours you can visit the restaurant.
Unlike our computers, xboxes/ps3s and various other devices which can all (theoretically) download gigabyte after gigabyte after terabyte 24 hours per day, 7 days per week - if you have the drive space, of course. And if you don't now have such space, you can pick up 1TB external drives for less than Rs5,000 now and consume even more.
This is, in part, why our starting prices for flat-rate plans (unlimited is a bad word to use here - what if we do have to enforce an FUP or traffic throttling?) are more expensive than our "competition" and why we don't have anything like 256k options available: if we encourage users to pay for what they use by charging decent rates on data plans (less than Rs20/GB), we can pretty much guarantee a far superior service because no-one will be able to just sit around leeching for the hell of it and then we don't ever have to worry about FUPs, traffic management or users getting slow speeds or anything of that nature.
At the same time, I am not a pessimist but l am keen to learn your approach towards these issues which I am sure you would face down the line when it actually goes live.
Despite the above, the other thing we have to do here is quite risky. Since we are intending to offer these flat-rate plans, we may actually have to trust our customers to "do the right thing" and not waste bandwidth (or at least buy an appropriate plan for their usage patterns). Obviously in India this is going to be one hell of an issue because most people naturally opt for the cheapest option, and so we will have to find creative ways of upselling to the faster, more expensive plans.
This may involve suggesting to many customers that they opt for data-plans rather than slower speed flat-rate plans, or if they insist on unlimited, then, rather than applying a strict FUP, we could put a recommendation as to what people should use the various tiers for, for example:
5mbit/s - if you do a little bit of file-sharing, lots of social networking, uploading movies to youtube and watching a lot of youtube movies and your usage comes to about 100GB per month, then this plan is for you.
10mbit/s - as above, but more filesharing, watching HD videos, and your usage is about 170GB per month...
...
100mbit/s - if you use a lot of filesharing with BD rips, hd videos, have multiple computers, xboxes/ps3 blah blah blah and your usage is about 500Gb per month.
(example numbers, just to give you an idea).
Indians were taken as "coolies" and they remain entrapped in that mentality But apart from that, Mathew, I wonder what is going to be your "big" advertising pitch? If you believe the statistics much of the Internet access is used for emailing and apparently Facebook (or other versions of social networking).
For folks who want to use it "just" for applications like social networking and whatnot, then our selling point will probably be value more than anything else - we charge a lot less for data and/or "extra data" once the quota has been used up, so if users find themselves using over their quotas frequently, then a switch to us (most likely our "lite" service) should save them at least some money, since even our lowest "lite" plan offers 10GB of usage per month (and competes with similar plans that offer between 1 and 3GB per month).
For those who use things like Youtube a lot and get frustrated by shoddy online video streaming, then we would hope to solve that problem on either the lite or full product, and for heavy downloaders we have 2 value propositions: lack of FUP and faster speeds than anyone else - at somewhat more reasonable (by comparison) prices.
My current goal is to introduce 100mbit/s flat-rate at under Rs5k per month, with other flat-rate speeds (5, 10, 20 or 30 & 50mbit/s) available at prices between Rs1,200 and Rs3,999.
It would need a massive "education" campaign, stave off the attacks from the local cable operators or entrenched henchmen or even opposition from the ISP associations (though they are a rag tag group of idiots). This is because your promised speeds at the prices are beyond what they can come up with or even would want to invest in. I appreciate your efforts to engage us in a lively conversation but beyond that the specifics can get very demeaning in this country.
Staving off cablewalas and whatnot is a challenge - I see these guys as unnecessary and in some ways a hinderance to a solid and consistant broadband experience in India.
In addition, sometimes they even fight amongst themselves - some of them are very territorial and have been described to me as... psychotic and/or sociopathic... and greedy.
So end of the day, in many cases I don't think it's necessarily about "wanting" to be able to invest in infrastructure, it's about actually putting it in without it being vandalised or ripped up and sold off. Fortunately, Fiber doesn't have much resale value, so this is slightly less of a concern for us, but it's still something to be concerned about!
In reality, ISPs need to work together - many currently do not. Tata belittles Reliance who belittles Bharti who belittles Reliance who belittles Tata who belittles Bharti who belittles Tata, yet when in the presence of one, mentioning something about the other often brings about some form of cautious optimism about what is happening: kind of like "yeah, that's awesome, but it might fail".
Furthermore, they don't properly peer with each other, causing International capacity to be used unnecessarily, and whoever thought it would be a good idea to charge per GB at NIXI should be taken to India Gate and subjected to whatever punishment the broadband-hungry population of India can think of!
I've been bitching about all this since early 2009, and one of my good friend, Tarun, since 2007:
Why NIXI is such a failure | Tarun Dua
Mythbusting the assumptions of the ISP ecosystem in India with regard to current F/AUP changes | Tarun Dua
Let's face it this way. I wonder how many customers does Airtel have on 8 Mbps plans (Impatient plans as they call it) assuming the top end of the market they are operating in. They have focussed only on the key cities in India where they felt that returns on investment could justify the expensive proposition of laying down infrastructure.
Airtel and Tata both have fast plans - 30, 50 and 100mbit/s, so speed is nothing new. But they charge a bloody fortune for the same - Tata charges 3,500 for 100mbit/s but they allow just 10GB of usage, making that virtually useless! Airtel charges 7999 and 8999 and offers I think 200GB, which is at least reasonable, but still too expensive for anyone perhaps except a medium-sized business.
But as you've mentioned, all these plans have very limited coverage areas, and while the Tata offer is available in a small area of Mumbai, the Airtel offers to my knowledge still are not, but the opposite is true of Delhi.
As I raised the issue of "dumb pipes", my contention is that ISP's have sorely failed to source content for themselves.
This is not necessarily by choice. As we know, the peering situation in India is very, very sad (to put it lightly), which causes many problems with the whole neutrality issue. If a content provider wants to send content to users in India, he must procure bandwidth from all of the major ISPs, often at great expense, causing this to be somewhat cost-prohibitive. Otherwise that content ends up becoming available "exclusively on ISP X", which is not a good thing.
They have failed to tie up with movie production houses, failed to aggressively promote IPTV (and the one which we have is quite pathetic and deficient), value added services next to zilch and yada yada. The prime example is that of Reliance Stores and it ventured in during that time when dial up ruled the roost. It had everything going for it. Desktop games and connected to a central game server, Ankit Fadia's classes (Oh Boy!) and even video conferencing. It advertised heavily in local areas and it remained jam packed in the initial few years.
After a while, the same thing is tottering and in ruins. I had to go there for some reason recently and I was appalled at what had happened.
Whoops to them. Obviously the ability to obtain 3-play service including IPTV, ILD AS WELL AS NLD between customers using VOIP (I hope) and super-awesome broadband, good pre-configured (and remotely configurable) modems might help.
But then, unlimited Internet has it's audience in the forums; the same set of people would not be able to form the critical mass unless there is a COMPELLING proposition to shift to a new operator. No one likes to change their ISP's because it is universal mindset to continue with a known set of issues (and problems) rather than shift over to a new source of worry (or tension).
This is something I am keen to know.
I agree, but we can create a compelling offer, with the assistance of people here - the idea being give the people what they want. So far, by comparison the offers are compelling - currently we have 5mbit/s at Rs2499, 10mbit/s at Rs3499 both flat-rate.
This may be out of reach for a large number of people who desperately want such plans, but without FUPs, provides significantly better value for money for those who can and will pay that much (until such time as, of course, the price does come down, which, naturally, involves growth on our part and therefore purchasing significantly more bandwidth).
The thing is, though, flat-rate as a business model is utterly rubbish.
Seriously, in what other market can you obtain "all you can eat" for a fixed-price? You can't get that with electricity, water, or telephone calls. Everyone is happy to pay per minute for phone calls, but not per GB for internet. Why is that?
To use another metaphor, rarely can you find a buffet of food that will give you literally "all you can eat" - but even if you can find such a buffet, there are significant limits for the cost of actually providing "all you can eat" to everyone in the restaurant, because the restaurant is limited by seating and the physical capacity of stomachs which can only consume so much in the few-hours you can visit the restaurant.
Unlike our computers, xboxes/ps3s and various other devices which can all (theoretically) download gigabyte after gigabyte after terabyte 24 hours per day, 7 days per week - if you have the drive space, of course. And if you don't now have such space, you can pick up 1TB external drives for less than Rs5,000 now and consume even more.
This is, in part, why our starting prices for flat-rate plans (unlimited is a bad word to use here - what if we do have to enforce an FUP or traffic throttling?) are more expensive than our "competition" and why we don't have anything like 256k options available: if we encourage users to pay for what they use by charging decent rates on data plans (less than Rs20/GB), we can pretty much guarantee a far superior service because no-one will be able to just sit around leeching for the hell of it and then we don't ever have to worry about FUPs, traffic management or users getting slow speeds or anything of that nature.
At the same time, I am not a pessimist but l am keen to learn your approach towards these issues which I am sure you would face down the line when it actually goes live.
Despite the above, the other thing we have to do here is quite risky. Since we are intending to offer these flat-rate plans, we may actually have to trust our customers to "do the right thing" and not waste bandwidth (or at least buy an appropriate plan for their usage patterns). Obviously in India this is going to be one hell of an issue because most people naturally opt for the cheapest option, and so we will have to find creative ways of upselling to the faster, more expensive plans.
This may involve suggesting to many customers that they opt for data-plans rather than slower speed flat-rate plans, or if they insist on unlimited, then, rather than applying a strict FUP, we could put a recommendation as to what people should use the various tiers for, for example:
5mbit/s - if you do a little bit of file-sharing, lots of social networking, uploading movies to youtube and watching a lot of youtube movies and your usage comes to about 100GB per month, then this plan is for you.
10mbit/s - as above, but more filesharing, watching HD videos, and your usage is about 170GB per month...
...
100mbit/s - if you use a lot of filesharing with BD rips, hd videos, have multiple computers, xboxes/ps3 blah blah blah and your usage is about 500Gb per month.
(example numbers, just to give you an idea).
I was thinking about unlimited connections being sold as a part and parcel with say dumb terminals (Novatium Computing, Next Revolution of Computing, Nova Navigator, Nova Navigator+, Nova Neon, Nova cnergy, Simple, Affordable & Easy Computing. - novatium.com) and promote some degree of "cloud computing". Of course, they can be configured with Linux or anyone of the flavor you like. Windows would make it unmanageable. This would help you (probably) to extend the reach, soften the deal and the Indian flavor of payments (EMI) or installments. Or some kind of a price model that allows a customer to pay monthly.
It can be argued against cloud computing but I am not going in that area for the time being. It is being promoted by other ISP's but you hardly find a mention on their web sites. Airtel has some kind of an offer to run "anti-virus" for "Windows computer"; I wonder how much those dodos can actually make a difference.
The broader idea is to make a compelling switch.
Indian mentality to buy a car, for example, is to see the average of running costs and it's possible re-sale value. The sales executives would focus on the AC, the inherent brand value of the product (as it is perceived in the market and ultimate ownership) and the reach of after sales support. No one focuses on :
1) The quality of the engine or the gear shift (relatively speaking).
2) How you get ripped off in the after sales
3) Suffice to rely on the "market" for the feedback.
Hence, I have seen Tata Indicas as a reliable product (I have seen it getting abused to the hilt and still giving it's value after 5 years) but it suffers from refinements and even Mathew would not "park his...." inside one. (Neither would I, of course).
Hence, the value proposition hinges not on the sound rational logic (that I totally agree with) but if I were you, I would seed my fibre all over and then assume total ownership of the content to be streamed.
For example, a set of customers downloading for XBox would see "faster access"; similarly You Tube junkies would see a "faster access" and the likes.
Even Google would be interested.
And you owe me (and the boss around here-our admin) free "ALL YOU CAN EAT" bandwidth...
)
It can be argued against cloud computing but I am not going in that area for the time being. It is being promoted by other ISP's but you hardly find a mention on their web sites. Airtel has some kind of an offer to run "anti-virus" for "Windows computer"; I wonder how much those dodos can actually make a difference.
The broader idea is to make a compelling switch.
Indian mentality to buy a car, for example, is to see the average of running costs and it's possible re-sale value. The sales executives would focus on the AC, the inherent brand value of the product (as it is perceived in the market and ultimate ownership) and the reach of after sales support. No one focuses on :
1) The quality of the engine or the gear shift (relatively speaking).
2) How you get ripped off in the after sales
3) Suffice to rely on the "market" for the feedback.
Hence, I have seen Tata Indicas as a reliable product (I have seen it getting abused to the hilt and still giving it's value after 5 years) but it suffers from refinements and even Mathew would not "park his...." inside one. (Neither would I, of course).
Hence, the value proposition hinges not on the sound rational logic (that I totally agree with) but if I were you, I would seed my fibre all over and then assume total ownership of the content to be streamed.
For example, a set of customers downloading for XBox would see "faster access"; similarly You Tube junkies would see a "faster access" and the likes.
Even Google would be interested.
And you owe me (and the boss around here-our admin) free "ALL YOU CAN EAT" bandwidth...
)mgcarley
Founder, Hayai Broadband
I was thinking about unlimited connections being sold as a part and parcel with say dumb terminals (Novatium Computing, Next Revolution of Computing, Nova Navigator, Nova Navigator+, Nova Neon, Nova cnergy, Simple, Affordable & Easy Computing. - novatium.com) and promote some degree of "cloud computing". Of course, they can be configured with Linux or anyone of the flavor you like. Windows would make it unmanageable. This would help you (probably) to extend the reach, soften the deal and the Indian flavor of payments (EMI) or installments. Or some kind of a price model that allows a customer to pay monthly.
I absolutely think that this is a fantastic idea, and it would definitely be something that we would promote certain audiences - especially probably in rural India, as well as to (for example) schools, and the "older" generation, who perhaps has little or no use for a standard computer. I have been approached by and have spoken to a number of vendors about equipment and solutions, but so far not too much has come of it yet.
It can be argued against cloud computing but I am not going in that area for the time being. It is being promoted by other ISP's but you hardly find a mention on their web sites. Airtel has some kind of an offer to run "anti-virus" for "Windows computer"; I wonder how much those dodos can actually make a difference.
The broader idea is to make a compelling switch.
Of course - or rather than encouraging users who already have broadband to "make a switch", perhaps converting the much larger market of non-internet-users in to internet-users.
Hence, the value proposition hinges not on the sound rational logic (that I totally agree with) but if I were you, I would seed my fibre all over and then assume total ownership of the content to be streamed.
...I don't think we can do that for content we don't generate - either that or I'm not getting you correctly. As for the rest, hosting and streaming content to users on other ISPs can be somewhat beneficial for us, so there's no reason we should limit any mirrors to our users only - any ISP who peers with us should get access to it for the benefit of their customers as well (though we should definitely always lead the way!)
For example, a set of customers downloading for XBox would see "faster access"; similarly You Tube junkies would see a "faster access" and the likes.
Xbox and PS3 we already plan to solve by hosting local nodes of the respective download networks, but even Youtube HD should work perfectly fine on ~10mbit/s.
Even Google would be interested.
Perhaps we can see about Google's chrome devices and getting them translated to a variety of regional languages or something.
And you owe me (and the boss around here-our admin) free "ALL YOU CAN EAT" bandwidth...)
There are a number of people to whom I plan on offering priority service or free upgrades or even a free connection altogether.
I absolutely think that this is a fantastic idea, and it would definitely be something that we would promote certain audiences - especially probably in rural India, as well as to (for example) schools, and the "older" generation, who perhaps has little or no use for a standard computer. I have been approached by and have spoken to a number of vendors about equipment and solutions, but so far not too much has come of it yet.
It can be argued against cloud computing but I am not going in that area for the time being. It is being promoted by other ISP's but you hardly find a mention on their web sites. Airtel has some kind of an offer to run "anti-virus" for "Windows computer"; I wonder how much those dodos can actually make a difference.
The broader idea is to make a compelling switch.
Of course - or rather than encouraging users who already have broadband to "make a switch", perhaps converting the much larger market of non-internet-users in to internet-users.
Hence, the value proposition hinges not on the sound rational logic (that I totally agree with) but if I were you, I would seed my fibre all over and then assume total ownership of the content to be streamed.
...I don't think we can do that for content we don't generate - either that or I'm not getting you correctly. As for the rest, hosting and streaming content to users on other ISPs can be somewhat beneficial for us, so there's no reason we should limit any mirrors to our users only - any ISP who peers with us should get access to it for the benefit of their customers as well (though we should definitely always lead the way!)
For example, a set of customers downloading for XBox would see "faster access"; similarly You Tube junkies would see a "faster access" and the likes.
Xbox and PS3 we already plan to solve by hosting local nodes of the respective download networks, but even Youtube HD should work perfectly fine on ~10mbit/s.
Even Google would be interested.
Perhaps we can see about Google's chrome devices and getting them translated to a variety of regional languages or something.
And you owe me (and the boss around here-our admin) free "ALL YOU CAN EAT" bandwidth...
)There are a number of people to whom I plan on offering priority service or free upgrades or even a free connection altogether.
@hplp20 - I think Mathew has answered that a number of times. He is not keen on a fixed FUP limit and would not really bother as long as the usage averages out over his user base. However, the screws would have to be tightened if/when there is widespread abuse. We must agree that is a fair policy.@Abhishek, Mathew - I sincerely feel cloud computing concepts are a little too early for the home consumer in India. I think it is tightly coupled with our respect for intellectual property laws.
@hplp20 - I think Mathew has answered that a number of times. He is not keen on a fixed Fair Usage Policy limit and would not really bother as long as the usage averages out over his user base. However, the screws would have to be tightened if/when there is widespread abuse. We must agree that is a fair policy.
I am more in "favor" of a speed reduction kind of a thing. Something like say on a 5 Mbps plan, after about 50-60 GB limit, the "speed" reduces to about 3 MBps and thereon. I think this has been addressed but to me it represents a fair value and I agree with Mathew's contention. I cannot answer for the twerps who might be willing to "sublet" the bandwidth or use it for "nefarious" purposes but I guess it is too early to draw conclusions. For me an 'unlimited plan" basically gives me a peace of mind that I am not going "overboard". I hate to keep a constant check on every byte that goes in and out. As an average user, I use the available plans to surf, to try and watch some You Tube, download some torrents, update my system and my folks depend heavily on Skype for their Voip needs. That sums up the whole usage pattern which was there on my prior Airtel 1Mbps (unlimited) also.
@Abhishek, Mathew - I sincerely feel cloud computing concepts are a little too early for the home consumer in India. I think it is tightly coupled with our respect for intellectual property laws.
I doubt whether anyone gives a {f} about the privacy on line. We give away massive amounts of information to Facebook; it was only when the European and the Canadian authorities screwed FB over privacy did they act. Still, the whole idea behind FB is a glorified advertising platform for targeted ads.
For me, I'd like to have a mobile, always (or instant on) netbook, a reliable cloud backup and means to access the same. This makes is easier to keep a track of information.
For example, I recently discovered the joys of having apps on my Android handset; I can instantly get the information or documents online (through EDGE at present) and it comes in real handy before I reach out for a conference or something. Knowledge is power and is transformational. I am sure that you can make out something useful for your sphere of work. Instant on knowledge and information can help wonders.
Plus more. Something like a "fast broadband" with a computer bundled can be a good selling pitch. A cloud app like Jolicloud mentioned can help to make it easier for people to understand the ease of use and make a switch. Since this has modest computing requirements, I don't foresee an expensive option.
I am more in "favor" of a speed reduction kind of a thing. Something like say on a 5 Mbps plan, after about 50-60 GB limit, the "speed" reduces to about 3 MBps and thereon. I think this has been addressed but to me it represents a fair value and I agree with Mathew's contention. I cannot answer for the twerps who might be willing to "sublet" the bandwidth or use it for "nefarious" purposes but I guess it is too early to draw conclusions. For me an 'unlimited plan" basically gives me a peace of mind that I am not going "overboard". I hate to keep a constant check on every byte that goes in and out. As an average user, I use the available plans to surf, to try and watch some You Tube, download some torrents, update my system and my folks depend heavily on Skype for their Voip needs. That sums up the whole usage pattern which was there on my prior Airtel 1Mbps (unlimited) also.
@Abhishek, Mathew - I sincerely feel cloud computing concepts are a little too early for the home consumer in India. I think it is tightly coupled with our respect for intellectual property laws.
I doubt whether anyone gives a {f} about the privacy on line. We give away massive amounts of information to Facebook; it was only when the European and the Canadian authorities screwed FB over privacy did they act. Still, the whole idea behind FB is a glorified advertising platform for targeted ads.
For me, I'd like to have a mobile, always (or instant on) netbook, a reliable cloud backup and means to access the same. This makes is easier to keep a track of information.
For example, I recently discovered the joys of having apps on my Android handset; I can instantly get the information or documents online (through EDGE at present) and it comes in real handy before I reach out for a conference or something. Knowledge is power and is transformational. I am sure that you can make out something useful for your sphere of work. Instant on knowledge and information can help wonders.
Plus more. Something like a "fast broadband" with a computer bundled can be a good selling pitch. A cloud app like Jolicloud mentioned can help to make it easier for people to understand the ease of use and make a switch. Since this has modest computing requirements, I don't foresee an expensive option.