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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 $2.30) a month for a domestic broadband connection. The project will provide services with a minimum bandwidth of 2Mbps. The execution of the project is scheduled to begin in April 2005 and will be completed by December 2006. The strength of the consortium is evident by the participation of top-notch Indian corporations which include Railtel Corporation India Limited, Tata Indicom, VSNL Limited, INcable Network (Andhra) Limited, Spectranet Limited and Nuziveedu Seeds Limited."
And are there good employment perspectives?
It depends, are you ready to be paid like Indian workers ?
I'm from india.100 Rs is definitely very cheap. To put it in perspective
--In Metros a movie ticket costs 70-200 Rs.(depends on the metro).
--Landline rentals start at around 350 Rs.
--Internet call rates (not the ISP charge) if you use the BSNL telephone network is more than 20 Rs an hour and around 7 Rs after 10.30pm till 8 am.ISP charges are extra.
So at 100 Rs/month this is a steal !!
TechSutra
I am from the neighbouring state karnataka (yes in Bangalore and yeah it is definitely true that I am taking american jobs, we don't have anything to eat so we don't need broadband and yeah I catch an elephant to work every morning).
I definitely wish our chief minister takes notice, but I don't have much hope because of the deputy chief minister (who is like Sauron behind Saruman).
Congrats to the telugu (APs language) guys, we have been beating them in everything (including letting them think that we actually wanted M$ 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?
Does this mean that we are going to see even more Bollywood movies on file sharing networks?
Well you've raised the interesting question: how much is the cheapness of Indian programmers the result of an overly weak Rupee (read strong US dollar), and how much the fact that Indian programmers are just cheaper.
If a programmer in India, earning $5,000 a year, can afford 2MB broadband, a nice appartment, food, etc. (i.e. as much as a programmer in the US), then who is to say that Indian programmers are underpaid. Perhaps the issue is solely one of the US dollar being too strong. As work moves offshore, the effect of this will be (in the long run) that money flows to India, the rupee rises, and US programmers become more competitive again.
Just a thought...
Cheers,
Robert
--- My dad's political betting
I agree with your point. One thing though. $100 = Rs. 4500 isn't that big a deal in India :-)
Perhaps an architect could get by with $100 a month IF he/she lives alone or with their parents, has no loans, cooks at home, and takes the bus everyday. $100 is also roughly what a student (from a no-name college with no campus placements) would expect to get paid with 0 experience.
A typical middle-class Indian would earn about $200-$300 a month, live in a 2BHK rental/govt flat (Bedroom, "Hall" aka living room, Kitchen), own a scooter or a 100cc motorbike (100cc bikes give insane mileage - 1 liter = 100km!), and have a 4-5 member family (husband, wife, 2 kids, grandma).
I agree. $2.30 pm is quite reasonable. However, PC prices in India are exorbitant. Forget purchasing power parity. The same PC that costs $500 in the US would cost about $800 in India! This is the reason why the PC penetration in India is so low. To add to it, most Indians tend to buy stuff with cash after they've saved for it. Hence, they usually plan to save for about 2-4 years if they want to buy a PC for their kid.
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.
Being from America, and having gone through the public school system, I simply assumed that Manitoba was in India... Ain't it?
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello