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Rolling Out Broadband Internet, On The Cheap
Mathamota writes "The goverment controlled telephone company in the city of Kolkata (Calcutta), India is providing a Internet access service called DIAS (Direct Internet Access System) which provides 24 hour connection at 128kbps (when the phone is being used, it drops to 64). However, the best part is that the cost of Plan I (which has a data transfer limit of 500 megs) is only Rs 825 ($ 16.50) per month, all inclusive.
The technology used in this stuff is quite interesting, and there is a whitepaper available at the site of the company which developed the system." At first glance, it sounds just like plain old ISDN; but after reading the white paper, it's a bit different. Cool idea.
But 128K is still slow, after having a cable modem and unlimited monthly downloads, I cant go back! I mean cmon, 500 meg download limit? I do that in an hour on kazaa lite. :)
No I didnt spell check this post...
It's Indian-Style Dodgy Networking.
- Oisin
PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
500MB limit?
500MB a day right?
If that is your real name.
/syle
The expansion of Internet access in anyway way is a good thing, but you must ask what will happen when this government ran internet service provider starts cracking down on it's citizens internet usage habits. Because it's a government ran internet service provider would the government be held accountable for file sharing crap going on?
How much of this "low cost" is because of subsidies?
I could (but would never) roll out low cost T1s to everyone in the USA for 10 bucks a month... just have the government pick up the tab.
~foooo
The cost of this is not inexpensive if you consider what most indians make at a yearly level. Not to mention the cost of the phone or computer. It's a step in the right direction.
Cheers to the government
What is the cost of living like in India?
If it's decent, does that mean that there's a greater chance that Open Source will spread with the easier availability of iso's and ftp installs?
Have you guys heard of Etherlinx?
Apparently, they have their own way of rolling out cheap broadband. Anyone have any idea on whether their super-sized WiFi works?
Why do I h8 apple?
Jeez and all this time I thought ISDN stood for 'Insanely stupid dial-up networking'.
There are a lot of people out there that cannot afford $40+ a month for screaming fast Internet access. Many others simply won't pay. On the surface, this looks to be an excellent tool to help us bridge the digital divide. Let the "poor" kids have some decent Internet access.
Plus, true 128 is soooo much faster that 56k (which is usually 28.8 - 44ish).
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
other than some bizarre anomolies like the cost of living in bombay being the highest in the world at one time, the average salary in india is miniscule compared to (say) the western world. $16 a month or so for net access is a 1/2 to 1/3 of what you can pay here in california for a much faster service.
"best part is that the cost of Plan I (which has a data transfer limit of 500 megs) is only Rs 825 ($ 16.50)"
Sure, for us $16.50 doesn't sound bad, but in India where they obviously make more than we do (*sarcasm*)?
Btw, what is this "Rs", CIA world factbook shows "Indian rupee (INR)" as being India's currency?
Question everything.
After reading this article I msg'd a punjab I know on IRC for his insight. He told me his family back in India tried this service and found it to be much slower than 128k most of the time and outages were frequent. So I guess you can say the "cheap" price reflects the quality of the servers hosting the service.
Typical household income is about $1500/year. So that's like someone in the US paying $500/month for DSL.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
$16.50 is quite a lot of money
That's about twice what a good modem offers these days. It might have better latency than a modem, but bandwidth? You can't get anything better than the poor-quality video streams from the web news sites with 128 kbps, and you certainly can't reliably stream 128 kbps MP3, which itself isn't CD-quality.
I have 640/128 DSL, and while the 640 is nice and speedy and supports most of the media I want, the 128 up is terribly slow and won't even allow me to stream Oggs (192 kbps) from my home to my workplace.
"Broadband" means something different now than it did 5 years ago.
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What are the options for a US citizen to get online right now?
- Pay AOL || MSN || Earthlink $20> / mo. for dialup
- Pay local Cable or Telephony Monopoly $50> / mo. for "broadband"
US ISP have some serious issues w/ their services - essentially, theres price fixing in both dialup and DSL/Cable options, which the FCC and the FTC are ignoring; despite continuous adoption of broadband, prices have yet to drop in the slightest - in fact, broadband providers regularly announce additional restrictions on bandwidth, personal site/email hosting, file upload/download, P2P file sharing, etc.It just seems like for all of our technological advantages, the US should have the highest rate of households w/ broadband, at the lowest prices, in comparison to any other nation. Instead, you have telephony companies in India providing their customers with affordable broadband, and nations like South Korea with the highest levels per capita of broadband usage.
Thats insane! Do you know how many Java developers $16.50 would buy? I bet your IT management does....
Those from India subcontinent will know that considering the cost of living, cost of man-power (technical) and cost of running a business: this is not cheap at all. Even at this price, most middle class families with 2 kids in the school won't be able to afford this internet. Osho
You mean third-world countries are getting broadband before I do?
"So that's like someone in the US paying $500/month for DSL."
Soooo...your saying the prices are much better there?
Do you realize how many Moblins I have to kill to get 825 frickin' rupees?
Geez...
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
For the telecom impaired: With ISDN you get three channels: two 64 Kbit/s voice/data pipes and a d-channel for signalling.
This boils down to the fact that when no phone calls are taking place you get 128kbit/s. Then a call comes in and tells your isdn modem-thing via the d-channel. The modem-thing drops one of the two 64kbit/s tupes and the call is set up while data traffic continues at 64kbit/s.
Any plain old ISDN router can play that game.
Anyway this is so 80's...
These days few telco's even bother with anything else but ADSL.
TCAP-Abort
First, I am an Indian. Now to the ground reality in India. When I used to have a dialup connection, I used to pay Rs 24 per hour for phone charges and Rs 10 for internet. If I stay online for 2 hours in a day, that would mean I spend about 70 rupees a day. For 30 days, that would make it 2100 rupees or something like 45 USD per month for a crappy dialup. Compare this with this solition. I pay $16.50 and thats it. So IMHO, its not bad atall. But yes, Bengal, whose capital is Kolkatta, is maybe the only INdian state still ruled by commies, so don't expect the phone company to let lose its orn grip anytime soon. And quality of serivce is something I wud rather not comment out, it sucks too much. Actually its fine when it works.. but its when it doesnt work, then finding someone who knows aboutt the system is a nightmare. Nice idea though.
What's under yellowstone?
Me, I pay only Rs. 650 for a 24 hr connection (fibre optic, last mile copper cable; and yes, I'm from India). BW sucks, 64 kbps, download cap is 300 megs a month, but it's far better than dialup and sufficient for all my needs, and it lets me run a server, so I'm quite happy with it.
So this is a really good thing. I hope lots of people will use it. Quit whining.
Ignoring the whole household vs salary argument (how many Indian families are multi-income?) take a look at the two important numbers here:
Indian Average Household Income - $2,847
Indian Median Household Income - $1,005
Source - Asian Demographics Note these are Urban households which is what is applicable in this case.
The reason for the huge difference is due to the huge gap between the poor and the wealthy in India. In the US the average is $49K and the median is $42K which is a much smaller gap.
In summary, the two things you need to take into consideration in your argument are the number of multi-income families in India (couldn't find that number) and the gap between the wealthy and the poor.
Nice idea - maintain the low standard of living in India so undereducated, soft, lazy Americans can maintain their high standard of living.
It's amazing how people can believe in equal rights until it's they that have to give something up to a more talented but previously repressed foreign worker.
My advice? Start writing better code or further your education if you don't want your job given to someone willing to do a better job than you. And don't give me this outsourcing sob story - if your job can be done capably by someone who has virtually no contact with management, halfway around the world, then you're not doing a good job. If you are a good, educated programmer, you have nothing to worry about. If you have the ability to lead and manage projects, you have nothing to worry about. If not, then you're screwed, and you have no one to blame but yourself.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
This actually paying Rs850 for always on internet is very reasonable for most middle class families. My parents back in India spend about an hour a day online. In India you *pay* for local phone calls unlike the US unlimited local service... So at approx Rs 1(conservatively) per min for phone charges thats already Rs1800. This doesn't even count the ISP charges which were about Rs 250 for 100 hours the last time I was there. Some ppl contacted my parents to see if they were interested in cable Internet for Rs1000 per month... Needless to say they were. On the other hand most govt run things in India suck big time.
- dharhas
A lot of people seem to think that the pricing is too high. However, the target market - the middle-class/upper-class, could easily afford this. In my house the telephone bill (mostly due to net) comes to around Rs.2,500. I would jump at this opportunity, and so would almost all of my friends.
Now whether 128Kbps is broadband is a different argument, but it sure beats crappy 33.1Kbps, and there would be no per-minute charge!!
Slightly OT. The IIT (Indian Inst of Tech. ) decided a few years ago, that waiting for multi-nationals to bring in new tech that was cheap enough for use in India was pointless. The MNC's were used to at least $40 revenue per phone line per month, and that is what they were expecting in India. The IIT decided that it would go for lower-cost/lower-speed solutions using the latest in tech to drive the prices down, instead of increasing the features.
A famous anecdote that one of the Professors there likes to relate - Around the 80's , all the digital phone switches used in India were imported. Companies like Alcatel, Ericsson, etc. used to charge a hefty bundle for them. Then C-DoT (Center for Development of Telecom) stepped in and made their own digital switch for a fraction of the cost. Almost overnight, the MNC's were forced to drop their prices in order to compete. This is what Banyan Networks, and a host of other small startups, incubated at IIT, want to do in India.
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
Yawn. ACs are not worth replying to, but still.
Go see allegedly high-born castes ("Brahmins") pull rickshaws (human-powered carts) in Patna.
Go see Rajasthani Meenas (a "low-born" caste, under-developed until a few decades ago) get into the India's Civil Service and get cushy jobs in ever increasing numbers (affirmative action has helped somewhat here).
Look at the politics and bureaucracy of almost any South Indian state (especially Tamil Nadu) and see how Brahmins have practically been eliminated from both these spheres.
Look at how powerful the so-called lower-castes and tribals are in the north, in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.
Sure, caste isn't finished in India (it has had 2500 years to flourish here, after all) but things are a lot better now for 'low-born' Indians today. And that is a Good Thing(tm).
Today, how successful you are is usually decided by how well educated you are. And that's the way things should be. And thanks to affirmative action, there are *lots* of "low-born" Indians who get excellent education, 'reserved' seats in the best colleges and free/highly subsidized education, even in college and grad school.
Go somewhere random
Say goodbye to those 300 megs ;)