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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."
Manitoba. You didn't think I was going to say India by any chance, did you?
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
Now i can post my webcam videos of students giving oral sex at blazing speeds!
Based on the local economic conditions in India, $2.30 is probably totally reasonable.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
As I see, most Slashdotters - instead of commenting - decided to RTFA and check possibilites of emigrating to and working in India.
OK, guys, if you've already checked it - how much does a plane ticket from Europe to India cost? And are there good employment perspectives?
Sweet, that means dial-up should only cost about 20 cents per month! where do I sign?
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
Roll with the outsourcing trend! Simply put two servers into each home in the region, and share the bandwidth.
:-)
Let the indian family use one, and sell the other as ultra-cheap hosting
Such as japan , where you get ludicrous speeds for low cash. or Norway where its dirt cheat for fat pipes :)
Good initiative but unless the operating system, office programs , games are translated into their local language it will not benefit much. In India still the internet and outsourcing are the possesion of a prized few who know english. There are many more analtycal minds tied up just for the lack of english knowledge. If only could the Indian government unshackle the internet and make it truly multilingual then it is true freedom for indians.
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
I am from the neighbouring state karnataka (yes in Bangalore and yeah it is definitely true that I am taking american jobs, we don't have anything to eat so we don't need broadband and yeah I catch an elephant to work every morning).
I definitely wish our chief minister takes notice, but I don't have much hope because of the deputy chief minister (who is like Sauron behind Saruman).
Congrats to the telugu (APs language) guys, we have been beating them in everything (including letting them think that we actually wanted M$ 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.
"The network will have optic fibre connectivity right up to the village level."
From my understanding, India is a country of Very rich and Very poor. The middle class, if you would, is a newer concept (thanks to the tech boom).
So, if these villages lean to the poor side (assuming if you had $ you would live in a city) would you even have a computer? If not, what good is broadband?
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.
Wow! if this is implemented, this is simply wow!! Though promise of a really Fast pipe and ultra-blazig speeds are still not fulfilled, i can vouch for the temendous improvements in net connection speed/options that has happened in India,especially bangalore.
I remember the times when I had to connect to my web server (verio) using modem/phone Lines, data actually used to come in trickles and any "work" was done during night only. The only good side effect was that you developed buddha-like patience.
Now people are providing broadband over Cable wires/CDMA network/anything. Mobile network providers are into GPRS and now its actually possible to plug your mobile in LapTop and go net surfing.
No
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...
Does this mean that we are going to see even more Bollywood movies on file sharing networks?
This looks like some sort of political move to reassure investors that the government is not going to be hostile to tech industries.
Andhra Pradesh had a very progressive chief minister for the last two terms (Chandrababu Naidu). Many of his policies were technology centred, and he made massive improvements in the infrastructure. But it seemed to many that his improvements were only for the major cities, and the farmers in the villages were left out. This was partially true, but largely false.
The most recent elections proved to be a monstrous defeat for his party and YS Rajasekhara Reddy was put in. YSR is seen to be a "farmer's CM", so to speak. His main issue was that the state ministry will focus more on the issues at the villages, and not solely on technology development.
Recently, this has scared away a lot of big business from investing in AP. But AP is severly cash starved, thanks to tons of money grubbing politicos (just like any place else in teh world). Maybe you see the dilemma now. The government needs the money from them, but it cannot look like it is supporting them.
If you ask me, this is just a political move to play both sides of the game. I do not believe it straight out. I have heard things like this being proposed for so many years now that it's made me quite cynical. The project will probably become another place to divert funds from.
And yes, I was from AP. I've lived in both the cities and the villages. Now I live in bangalore.
Most of the broadband services here (India) put unrelistically small download limits on their connections. However 'unlimited' download connections are popping up and with a speed of 2mbps there won't be, hopefully, any download limit.
All I can say now is: Damn. I live in Bangalore which is supposed to be the Silicon Valley of India (but its not in Andhra Pradesh). Here the cheapest connection people can get is s 128kbps unlimited connection for Rs. 1,000 (about 20 USD) pm. (There are cheaper ISPs but they are not available in most places of the city or the customer should have a cable TV connection from them)
256k dsl was set at 150LE or 12.5usd at the current black market rate of 6le/usd.
this does not include the modem @ 430le (modem + 4 port switch + splitter)
but it does include monthly adsl suscription cost to the telco
currently, the ministry of interior has a deal for its officers for 80le/month and the army has one too for 75le/month.
--
go ahead its time to mod me a troll
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
Well, blow me down. Here in Poland, our monopolistic telco takes around 10% of the average income for a 512/128kbps line, and have outages of more than a month. You need to pay the bill for the time the line was down, of course -- unless you're willing to face a 5-10 years long legal battle for your money. Lost profits? Who cares.
Thus, if India is a 3rd-world country, the US are 4th-world, Zambia 100th and Poland approximately 89th.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
In other news, it was discovered today that people in India generally make far less than the average American/European and have a lower standard of living.
It was also discovered that Slashdot editors know nothing about economics and that you can't just convert things to US dollars and declare "it's cheaper!".
News at 11.
Yes, but you are forgetting a vital point that the UK has the worlds highest coverage of DSL broadband. It's nearly 99.5% now, and will be by the end of 2005.
This, has of course, meant that money has been poured into upgrading the network for small villages instead of fiber optics and higher speed DSL.
The French offer you are talking about is nowhere near 100% coverage and it's unsustainable at that price. Either they are going to go bankrupt or they will hike prices later on.
Also, France Telecom is just starting privatisation. BT was privatised in 1985 or thereabouts and it's a very painful conversion, so expect France Telecom to suffer badly and be totally underfunded over the next few years as it cuts costs as much as possible and hikes prices to get in the black.
BT is now starting to trial ADSL2 and Fibre to the Home, and they have pledged £billions into rolling it out, along with converting the entire phone network to use IP instead of being circuit switched. I'm sure in the next 5 years that the UK will have the best of both worlds, excellent coverage, stable pricing and good speeds.
IntechHosting - Free domain, 2GB, PHP, £4.95/$8.95
Ironically, technical support for the Indian broadband customers will be provided entirely by low-paid Americans.
As far as I understand, the reason why the current DSL offers are so cheap in France is because of the privatisation! Companies like Free.fr, 9 Telecom or Easynet are not just ISPs, they are full telecom operators. And that's why ADSL is so cheap. Those companies do not depend on France Telecom lines.
In comparison, in the UK, you need a BT landline to get ADSL.
I agree with your point relating to coverage though. Most places in France do not have "degroupage" yet - meaning they have to stick to the FT based ADSL solutions (capped at 2Mb and not always cheaper than the 15Mb), and even so general ADSL coverage is probably not as good as it is in the UK, but it's so much cheaper and faster. *jealous*
...and $100 is DEFINITELY NOT 1 month's pay for an architect. Why, fresh B.E.s start off at a minimum of around $400 a month. Architects make a lot more. The average salary here is above $1000 a month for a moderately experienced professional. So I'll take it you meant 1000 and not 100.
:) Apartment rentals start at around Rs.6000 a month. Movie tickets are around Rs. 150.
Just to give you an idea of the living expenses, if you eat out every day, food can cost you between Rs. 100-300 a day in a good restaurant in the famous city of Bangalore - I'm not talking fastfood
To put the "broadband" rates here in perspective, the going rate now is about Rs.800 (less than $20) for a 256kbps connection with about a 500 MB traffic limit. So a 100 bucks for 2Mbps is an excellent deal.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Just a thought - if a developing country/state can afford to go that cheap, why here in US we have this rampant prices ?? Someone(Corporate world) out here is making big money. Isn't it time companies act in the interest of consumer rather than their own ??
Where do you get the idea that the US dollar is strong gout of this??? Lets say that a roll of Kodak film cost $3.50US in the USA that same roll of film in India cost $0.35US in India. The roll of film hasn't changed it is still the same roll of film. The only thing is that it cost you MORE in the US because the US dollar is WEAK!!!! it ain't worth as much as other people's money. The roll of film hasn't changed has it??? No the only diffenance is what you pay for it. Your buying power is not as great which means you money is no good!
In 1972 I made 3.10 and hour here in the US. I had a nice house a car took trips and could afford to go our on the town every now and then. Now I make $20.00 per hour and I can't hardly afford to live. My life style hasn't changed except for the fact that a dollar will not buy what it would in 1972. Personally I would rather work for the $3.10 and be able to buy a loaf of bread for $0.35 and a gallon of gas for $0.50
You have been buying into the media crap too much an not doing your own math. The reason labor is cheap there is not that their money is no good but that ours is no good. Labor is labor and has its own worth. What regulates worth is the value of the money. Not the value of the work.
Buying Power = Money Value
Yes I will work for $5000.00 a year if I can have a nice apartment, eat go out, go on a vacation, and be able to enjoy life. I'm sure not doing those things with the powerful US Dollar we have now!!!!!!!
Unless the Indian companies backing this project take a very hard-line anti-spam and anti-virus stance (anyone know what the market penetration of Windows vs. Linux/BSD/MacOS is in India?), I can see this turning into a giant clusterfuck for the rest of the Internet.
You think the American zombie botnets are bad, wait 'till there are a couple hundred thousand Indian Windoze boxen all on 2-meg symmetric connections. This has the potential to bring an entire country to its knees if the virus authors co-ordinate properly and the Indian users are just as clueless as their American counterparts.
Of course, if Linux/BSD/MacOS is significantly more popular there than Windows is, you can probably ignore most of this cynicism.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!