jtd wrote:
On Sunday 09 July 2006 02:12 am, Dinesh Joshi wrote:
On Sunday 09 July 2006 01:37, Harsh Busa wrote:
I still donot see monopoloy anywhere . i donot understand this . they donot have a billing system in place ... they donot have field staff trained and etc etc hen why would you even go with them even if they gave cheaper than 999 a month ! ... such services wud be called beta and sud be marked free :D
How many players are offering services in the same / similar segment? Only one. Thats airtel. Well then it is called monopoly...
That is a virtual monopoly. There is no restriction on anybody setting up an Internet service. It is not commercially viable outside limited pockets to provide "propah" internet services. PC densities are abysymal and usage patterns even worse. Moreover it is going to stay that way until voice and voip is unshackled by babudom. At that point small players will start creating the infrastructure neccessary for a decent service.
Ok, at this point, I cant resist putting an accountant's input. 1. In no case is there a monopoly in internet services. The only case of a monopoly is for cable internet because no one else can put up cable lines (ref - cable mafia) 2. There are multiple operators, multiple technology, multiple pricing available to you, choose the one which makes sense to you. 3. Simply because they are giving a much lower rate plan does not make them a monopoly. A monoploy means that no one else is there to provide that service (monopoly is not linked to pricing, but availability of the service) 4. I know the bandwidth and infrastructure prices in India. No player can offer decent Internet service without data-throughput caps. If you want to use a service with large data transmission limits, you will need to pay for it. No one can provide you with a lunch at the taj or oberio at the price of a thali in a udipi hotel. 5. The internet service providers are going to provide services first where they can make more money. First they will target corporate business, then upmarket housing complex and when that market is saturated, the common man. Your saying on this forum that Airtel sucks or that they are going to loose money and customers does not make a bit of a difference to them. They dont care. You are not their target customer and they cant make money by giving you service. The cost of catering to retail is 10-12 times the cost of catering to corporate traffic. (I went and bought Bharti Televentures shares after seeing their marketing plan and scheme). 6. The small players can not set up decent infrastructure. Even in so called advance markets, there are only very large players in the internet access market. In any case, it has nothing to do with unbundling. The cost of international bandwidth in India is at least 4 times that of western countries. And there is very little local content, so you have to go all the way to USA for your data. Till 2010 when VSNL / Tata monopoly over major fiber landing rights ends, the matter will change only a little. (FYI, Reliance is ready for that, they have bought the company that owns most of the fiber cables between India, Europe and USA. I can only hope their corporate profit goals are same as India's). The only reason why bandwidth prices have reduced to some extent is that Bhartai laid fresh under-sea fiber cables from India to Singapore to take advantage of fiber pipes from SEA to USA. But the ocst of bandwidth for small players will remain prohabitive. Only the big players can gain from economy of scale and volume pricing leverage. 7. Look at players like sify. They are offering 64kbps flat pipes at pretty attractive prices. But you get perhaps 20kbps and in most cases the possibility of you being able to do enough downloads using that pipe is low. Same with hathway......Airtel is only giving you an attractive pricing that they think you will not use more than 25%, so they are going to laugh all the way to the bank. And they are right. I use a reliance datacard @650 per month with 1 GB data transfer, 115kbps connectivity speed. I use the laptop all the time, connected to the net at least 10 hours a day, I have not even used half the data limit in any of the last 5 months. That is the business customers, that is what they are looking for and that is where they are going to make money. 8. Just for perspective, my client's branch office in Delhi was using bharti silver internet service. We got them to change as they were not giving anywhere close to the promised bandwidth and it was affecting business and work. So what are you so happy about Bharti coming to Mumbai ? Except that it will add another element of choice when you take a connection. The only ISP that delivers what they promise is MTNL.
That is my input. Hope it educated some people, and appologies to those who are bored by it.
Regards Saswata