College was shut today, for unknown reasons, so I returned home and was reading my emails.
Came across this blog
http://www.leadstep.com/BusinessBlog/technology/the_truth_behind_indian_broa...
Could someone have simpler explanations to what is mentioned in this article?
-- http://sankoobaba.blogspot.com
__________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/
On Thursday 14 December 2006 13:54, Roshan wrote:
Came across this blog
http://www.leadstep.com/BusinessBlog/technology/the_truth_behind_in dian_broadb.html
Could someone have simpler explanations to what is mentioned in this article?
Rgarding dns the article is wrong as every isp has a dns and most of us have a cache running on the localhost. Regarding content it is technically true that most of the content comes from servers hosted in the USA. But the costs of international bw is high because the DOT and TRAI chooses to protect local companies. VSNL has monopoly cable termination rights until march 07 (afaik). After that it will be an oligopoly mandated by government policies. U cant just string up a fibre optic cable from S'pore or H. K. and retail the terabytes of BW without paying licence fees to the DOT. Or connect an epabx (a la L.T.) to an internet pipe u criminal.
On 14/12/06 08:24 +0000, Roshan wrote:
College was shut today, for unknown reasons, so I returned home and was reading my emails.
Came across this blog
http://www.leadstep.com/BusinessBlog/technology/the_truth_behind_indian_broa...
Could someone have simpler explanations to what is mentioned in this article?
Lots of them. I suggest reading recent postings on the india-gii mailing list, hosted at lists.cpsr.org
Devdas Bhagat
On Thursday 14 December 2006 13:54, Roshan wrote:
College was shut today, for unknown reasons, so I returned home and was reading my emails.
Came across this blog
http://www.leadstep.com/BusinessBlog/technology/the_truth_behind_indi an_broadb.html
Could someone have simpler explanations to what is mentioned in this article?
complete nonsense. dont believe it a bit. Regarding the DNS issue, yes US has the root DNS servers so technically the really really low level DNS updates are taken from there but for everything else local DNSs are used which are caching servers.
Regarding the international bandwidth aspect, that too is hogwash. Countries like Sweden, Norway, Japan, China, France, Britain, <insert EU nation here>, Estonia, Russia have Megabit packages for retail users. From personal experience of a friend in Sweden, he had 256Kbps DSL at his place and used to get 100% bandwidth ( They used to sync him to 15-20% higher rates than advertised to compensate for the DSL line losses ). Now he is on a 100Mbps pipe shared amongst 3 friends and gets ~20-30Mbps while downloading concurrently while gets 80-90Mbps while downloading alone. Yes, he does get better bandwidth with local servers than US ones. But I down think it makes any difference if I am downloading at 50-60Mbps or 80-90Mbps... Hes on SUNET FYI ( Its a gigabit backbone for all Swedish universities ).
Next time if you see such an article DONT believe it. Its all FUD. Reliance, TATAs and Bharati have formed a nice cartel and they are ripping off not only the corporates but also the retail users. Did you know major portion of the submarine cables IN THE WORLD are being controlled by Reliance and TATAs ( FLAG and TYCO deal anyone? )
The main reason we do not have huge bandwidths is beccause of our regulatory environment. Recently the government has decided to allow us huge bandwidth. I think the decison or the formal notice is going to come in sometime around feb 2007.
Reliance, TATAs and Bharati have formed a nice cartel and they are ripping off not only the corporates but also the retail users. Did you know major portion of the submarine cables IN THE WORLD are being controlled by Reliance and TATAs ( FLAG and TYCO deal anyone?
Why grduge them their share of the pie? It was VSNL who played spoil sport all along. When VSNL refused to part with bandwidth, the biggies with sufficeint resources would look abroad to pick up infrastructure cheap, especially as FLAG and TYCO were not really doing very well.
On Thursday 14 December 2006 22:41, Sachin Nambiar wrote:
The main reason we do not have huge bandwidths is beccause of our regulatory environment. Recently the government has decided to allow us huge bandwidth. I think the decison or the formal notice is going to come in sometime around feb 2007.
yup i heard abt it too. but lets see what comes off it when it really arrives till then i have no hopes! :P
Why grduge them their share of the pie? It was VSNL who played spoil sport all along. When VSNL refused to part with bandwidth, the biggies with sufficeint resources would look abroad to pick up infrastructure cheap, especially as FLAG and TYCO were not really doing very well.
Yea yea yea...our government sucks big time. Blame the government for overly priced leased lines. Talk about commonsense...our government has NONE. Heh...
Well, the real problem still is the last mile. Till the government opens up the local loop to competition, we will still see the same conditions prevailing everywhere in India despite all regulatory reforms :P The small players can't get in cuz of prohibitively high costs of building your own local loop and the biggies wont give out affordable connections due to the same reasons :P
2Mbps @ 20,000INR a month with a download cap of 2GB heh...load of crap!! :P
On Friday 15 December 2006 23:43, Dinesh Joshi wrote:
Well, the real problem still is the last mile. Till the government opens up the local loop to competition,
The last mile is open to all the oligarchs. They just want a free ride on sombody else's network. wimax might yet bring some hope to end users..
we will still see the same conditions prevailing everywhere in India despite all regulatory reforms :P The small players can't get in cuz of prohibitively high costs of building your own local loop
The experiment at HBCSE proved conclusively that capital costs are very low. Caveat upstream has to be cheap and profits would be near zero.
On 16/12/06 10:59 +0530, jtd wrote: <snip>
The experiment at HBCSE proved conclusively that capital costs are very low. Caveat upstream has to be cheap and profits would be near zero.
How scalable was that network? Capital costs are low for any small network, but opex is relatively high. Can you show me how it would scale upto a few thousand nodes?
The problem in ISPs isn't one of bandwidth (that becomes cheaper per unit as you buy more), it's one of getting a reliable internal network which scales cheaply.
Devdas Bhagat
-- Rgds JTD
On Saturday 16 December 2006 11:36, Devdas Bhagat wrote:
The problem in ISPs isn't one of bandwidth (that becomes cheaper per unit as you buy more), it's one of getting a reliable internal network which scales cheaply.
Buddy, the problem is never technical. The problem is that of competition. A bit of aggressive and healthy competition will make these ISPs move their sorry a$$e$...
DoT / TRAI must create a more competitive, profitable atmosphere with higher stakes! :P
On Saturday 16 December 2006 11:36, Devdas Bhagat wrote:
On 16/12/06 10:59 +0530, jtd wrote:
<snip>
The experiment at HBCSE proved conclusively that capital costs are very low. Caveat upstream has to be cheap and profits would be near zero.
How scalable was that network? Capital costs are low for any small network, but opex is relatively high.
Opex is high with current business model. The wifi network is a DIY non-business.
Can you show me how it would scale upto a few thousand nodes?
Eat the pudding test: In my experience bw drops to 4 mbps and stays there with a 54Mbps AP for 10 to 20 users (havent tried higher). Latency increases though, but not by much. And we are talking of fat pipes for tens of nodes. According to Fred pook, the city of Dharamstala is fully covered by wifi - afaik 1000 nodes. However Scalability to this size will definetly be a problem. But scalability to lets say 3 to 4 nodes with one 10mbps pipe per cluster, and 30 users per node. Should give u good performance. We are talking of rural and semiurban areas with poor phone penetration.
The problem in ISPs isn't one of bandwidth (that becomes cheaper per unit as you buy more), it's one of getting a reliable internal network which scales cheaply.
Having said the above. Cellular and land networks are almost ubiquitos in India. And a wireless infrastructre would be an non lucarative business (given prevalent business models for content, voice and live media), but would help in providing competition the same way as libre software has. Note libre software provides several viable business models. One would have to think deeply about possible business models for such disruptive wireless networks.
On 16/12/06 13:38 +0530, jtd wrote: <snip>
Opex is high with current business model. The wifi network is a DIY non-business.
That doesn't make sense. You have two choices: 1) Put in a fat pipe (fairly expensive), even if you go wireless. Wireless has other issues as well, but will work fairly well in a rural environment. Then just keep growing and lighting up more of the fat pipes for a very small expense. Your per unit costs come down as you oversell.
2) Put in a narrow pipe, and then put in more pipes as you grow. Lowers your capex, increases your opex drastically.
Can you show me how it would scale upto a few thousand nodes?
Eat the pudding test: In my experience bw drops to 4 mbps and stays there with a 54Mbps AP for 10 to 20 users (havent tried higher). Latency increases though,
And dies beyond 25, from experience :). I suggest you try filesharing and something else on the same LAN with wireless.
but not by much. And we are talking of fat pipes for tens of nodes. According to Fred pook, the city of Dharamstala is fully covered by wifi - afaik 1000 nodes.
Essentially, the capability to service 20000 people, who will be accessing basic non-voice/video services, and not be doing any heavy data transfers.
However Scalability to this size will definetly be a problem. But scalability to lets say 3 to 4 nodes with one 10mbps pipe per cluster, and 30 users per node. Should give u good performance. We
And the 10 Mbps pipe costs you how much to lay? For a slightly higher cost, why not lay fiber (where the costs are in the termination, not in the pipe as opposed to being the other way rounf for copper), and get 100Mbps to the central node?
The problem isn't in the fat pipe. The problem is in taking bandwidth from the termination of the central pipe to the edge.
are talking of rural and semiurban areas with poor phone penetration.
The problem in ISPs isn't one of bandwidth (that becomes cheaper per unit as you buy more), it's one of getting a reliable internal network which scales cheaply.
Having said the above. Cellular and land networks are almost ubiquitos in India. And a wireless infrastructre would be an non lucarative business (given prevalent business models for content, voice and live
Errr, you do realise the BSNL refuses to allow other telephone carriers to use their fiber backbone to even carry voice calls? And charges their customers more money for "interconnectivity" and that subsidy for rural connectivity?
Honestly, our problem is stupid bureaucrats and their old, outdated business models.
media), but would help in providing competition the same way as libre software has. Note libre software provides several viable business models. One would have to think deeply about possible business models for such disruptive wireless networks.
Me? I would make access a public good, and run out fibre to lots of places (cheap), copper to the last mile, and then lease it out to service providers. The closest I have seen to that model is in Scandanavia, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand.
Devdas Bhagat
On Saturday 16 December 2006 18:25, Devdas Bhagat wrote:
--cut--
Agree with all of the abv. The problem seems to be that "regular" browsing and content is no longer sufficient to fuel insane profit expectations of the incumbents. Hence the attempt to hobble content and provide a container for incumbents to ride on. A close parallel to the os market.
Me? I would make access a public good, and run out fibre to lots of places (cheap), copper to the last mile,
That's precisely what BSNL has done - without the public good part - but at least their calls are a lot cheaper than the others (again due to subsidies, interconnect charges etc.).
and then lease it out to service providers.
which is what they refuse (or charge exorbitantly) to do.
The closest I have seen to that model is in Scandanavia, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand.
S'pore and H.K too (in the past local calls and lines were provided almost gratis).
So basically we are back to string private fibre - very high capex - or wireless los backbones.
On Saturday 16 December 2006 10:59, jtd wrote:
The experiment at HBCSE proved conclusively that capital costs are very low. Caveat upstream has to be cheap and profits would be near zero.
Which experiment? Can you provide me the details? See, ISPs like Airtel who provide DSL services take to trenching which is a long drawn, slow and costly process. It definitely slows down their deployment and makes it costly :P But with smart ISPs like Reliance ( Jai ADAG! :P ) they just take to stringing up their fiber over their OWN street lights and "throw" them into the adjacent buildings to provide connectivity... Yup this is the way they're going to provide us with IPTV, Broadband and fixedline services. Well, atleast in the suburbs. Heh.
On Saturday 16 December 2006 13:07, Dinesh Joshi wrote:
On Saturday 16 December 2006 10:59, jtd wrote:
The experiment at HBCSE proved conclusively that capital costs are very low. Caveat upstream has to be cheap and profits would be near zero.
Which experiment? Can you provide me the details?
The one u missed because of exams afair. We strung (wrung) up two access points. One connected to the lan and 2nd talking to the first. The aps were 802.11b afair. U could connect to them and access the net.
See, ISPs like Airtel who provide DSL services take to trenching which is a long drawn, slow and costly process. It definitely slows down their deployment and makes it costly :P But with smart ISPs like Reliance ( Jai ADAG! :P ) they just take to stringing up their fiber over their OWN street lights and "throw" them into the adjacent buildings to provide connectivity... Yup this is the way they're going to provide us with IPTV, Broadband and fixedline services. Well, atleast in the suburbs. Heh.
which is what your cablewallah did minus BMC permissions. ADAG were at the recieving end of BEST for using BEST poles. dunno if BEST pays the BMC leech for Pole space. BMC takes a cut off every hoarding, including vehicles with ads. The governments own everything including EM radiations on your behalf and charges others who charge u on your behalf.
On Saturday 16 December 2006 13:52, jtd wrote:
The one u missed because of exams afair. We strung (wrung) up two access points. One connected to the lan and 2nd talking to the first. The aps were 802.11b afair. U could connect to them and access the net.
I thought we were going to build a mesh network... Please dont mind my ignorance :(
which is what your cablewallah did minus BMC permissions. ADAG were at the recieving end of BEST for using BEST poles. dunno if BEST pays the BMC leech for Pole space. BMC takes a cut off every hoarding, including vehicles with ads. The governments own everything including EM radiations on your behalf and charges others who charge u on your behalf.
But they're still continuing with the wiring, aren't they? They're making such a mess of the streets! :(
On Saturday 16 December 2006 14:07, Dinesh Joshi wrote:
On Saturday 16 December 2006 13:52, jtd wrote:
The one u missed because of exams afair. We strung (wrung) up two access points. One connected to the lan and 2nd talking to the first. The aps were 802.11b afair. U could connect to them and access the net.
I thought we were going to build a mesh network... Please dont mind my ignorance :(
Correct. Which is what the abv is. U could also stroll from one network to the next without losing connectivity. Afaik the network is still up and available for testing. U can connect more aps on the edge to extend the network.
But they're still continuing with the wiring, aren't they? They're making such a mess of the streets! :(
Minor compared to the other big messes in our functioning chaos.
On 14/12/06 22:25 +0530, Dinesh Joshi wrote:
On Thursday 14 December 2006 13:54, Roshan wrote:
College was shut today, for unknown reasons, so I returned home and was reading my emails.
Came across this blog
http://www.leadstep.com/BusinessBlog/technology/the_truth_behind_indi an_broadb.html
Could someone have simpler explanations to what is mentioned in this article?
complete nonsense. dont believe it a bit. Regarding the DNS issue, yes US has the root DNS servers so technically the really really low level DNS updates are taken from there but for everything else local DNSs are used which are caching servers.
Psssst. Google: Anycast.
<snip>
know major portion of the submarine cables IN THE WORLD are being controlled by Reliance and TATAs ( FLAG and TYCO deal anyone? )
Like I said, search the India-GII archives. Unlike the discussion on this list, that one actually has informed and interested people talking (including people from the telecom industry).
Devdas Bhagat
On Friday 15 December 2006 00:43, Devdas Bhagat wrote:
Like I said, search the India-GII archives. Unlike the discussion on this list, that one actually has informed and interested people talking (including people from the telecom industry).
Link please. Uncle Google didn't turn up much :P
-
Devdas Bhagat -
Dinesh Joshi -
jtd -
Roshan -
Sachin Nambiar