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Indian Consortium To Offer 2 Mbps At $2.30/month
leoaugust writes "The State Govt of Andhra Pradesh in India, has awarded a contract for a fiber-optics based network to a consortium led by Aksh of India that aims to charge just Rs 100 (around US $2.30) a month for a domestic broadband connection. The project will provide services with a minimum bandwidth of 2Mbps. The execution of the project is scheduled to begin in April 2005 and will be completed by December 2006. The strength of the consortium is evident by the participation of top-notch Indian corporations which include Railtel Corporation India Limited, Tata Indicom, VSNL Limited, INcable Network (Andhra) Limited, Spectranet Limited and Nuziveedu Seeds Limited."
Based on the local economic conditions in India, $2.30 is probably totally reasonable.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I am from the neighbouring state karnataka (yes in Bangalore and yeah it is definitely true that I am taking american jobs, we don't have anything to eat so we don't need broadband and yeah I catch an elephant to work every morning).
I definitely wish our chief minister takes notice, but I don't have much hope because of the deputy chief minister (who is like Sauron behind Saruman).
Congrats to the telugu (APs language) guys, we have been beating them in everything (including letting them think that we actually wanted M$ to establish a center in bangalore...yeah like anyone would *want* that *evil grin*). But on a serious note it is a good thing, I hope they can really use this to reduce corruption in the state department.
Anyway some random rant, why we need IT and internet in the government is to actually alleviate poverty. How that would happen (as I see it) would be that by automating mundance tasks like getting sites and homes approved, land for agriculture, eastablishing industries etc., it would take the power away from the government employees and reduce corruption (or atleast push corruption to higher echelons of power like in the US). This would mean that the politicians need to actually approve projects from companies to get money which would mean more power to us.
Most moderators won't read till here so people
observe I will be modded flamebait.
Strangely, AC is right. We're paying about $30/mo for 24Mbps here in Tokyo. In $/Mbps this is pretty close to Indian prices.
It's not like they are planing to cover the entire country with this service. They "just" plan to operate in Andhra Pradesh.
I don't read replies by ACs.
This friend of mine who lives in France was shocked when I told him that I pay $45 for 3Mbps/384 Kbps dsl. Over there, there are 2 Isps offering 8, 15 and 20 Mbps dsl for between 15 and 30 euros (all taxes included).
Two years ago, the best you could get over there was 512 Kbps and they were starting to roll 1Mbps connections in select regions.
Part of the reason why I came to the U.S in the first place were superior broadband speeds. I feel betrayed now.
Just like this project is being done in only one state in India, I know of at least one state in the U.S. that is doing this. Utah. There is a fiber optic network known as UTOPIA that is being rolled out state wide...except where I live. I live in Provo, and the city planners decided to do it their own way. I will grant, however, that Provo's network is being rolled out a lot faster than UTOPIA is being done. There's already a significant portion of the city with access to iProvo (it's on the richer part of town, of course). But, I don't live in that area. I'm a student barely managing to survive on Top Ramen, and really crappy broadband.
[RANT]The stupid ISP that handles the Internet access for my apartment complex doesn't know how to set up their network! They put idiotic bandwidth limits on users - you get 64 kbps for free, any faster and you have to pay more - and the lousy network they set up can't even handle a fifty percent load. I paid extra for 256K, and I only get that in the morning when everyone else is at school, or late at night when everyone else is asleep. Oh, and you're only allowed to use your internet connection for 5 hours a day. Any more than that and they charge you a dollar an hour. Not to mention how poor the installation was.[/RANT] O.K., now I feel better. Next semester I'm moving into a house and getting cable for my broadband.
This space for rent...