Spamtheman
Senior Member
Introducing Dr. Abhishek Puri, a doctor who is as patiently waiting for broadband and a mac, as he is waiting for his MD. He lives in the North Indian state of Punjab, and like most of fellow punjabis, doesn’t mince words. He will be reporting from the second hottest telecom market on the planet.
Erstwhile in the socialist era and idealism, the government of the day straddled every sphere of economic activity like a behemoth. Understandably, it set up Department of Telecommunications to oversee the roll out of the Telecom services nationwide. However, in the past 50+ years of its existence, the telecom density remains one of the lowest in the world.
This has been besotted with high tariff structures, monopolization and anti-competitive policies of the state run organization. The telecom sector was opened up after the economic crises that swamped India in the 90’s- more so as ill-advised prescription of the donor agencies. Arguably, the competition from the private sector in theory should have led to better quality of infrastructure, which has not happened in real terms. After the voice calls went southwards in terms of pricing, Data services is the only way for these telecom services to survive meaningfully.
This remains the Achilles heel of what is widely perceived to be the fastest growing sector of the Indian economy. Internet services have so far still stuck in the dial up mode, despite the hype in the media about the broadband services. Indeed getting a decent connection is a far-fetched dream, almost a utopia. Frequent disconnections, rude and ignorant customer services, almost nil technical support are all reflective of a developing economy gone horribly wrong.
To be honest, after the IT meltdown of the 2000, there is an excess capacity. I remember dynamic Dewang Mehta who campaigned tirelessly within the corridors of power for bandwidth; his efforts bore fruit. However, as the problems faced by the Telco’s all over-the last mile access remained a big hurdle. Its true that bandwidth costs have come down, yet the benefit of lower cost has not yet percolated down to the end customers. Read as home users.
Most of the service providers chose to concentrate only in the major metros as judged by the paying capacity of the customers. However, they ignored the benefits of the first mover advantage in smaller towns and cities, which were left to be serviced by the Government. Internet through cable was the first foray in the “broadband” arena. It was easy to supply bandwidth to local cable operators and sign up customers with alluring offers, none of which were forthcoming. The download speeds of 16kbps onwards were advertised as “Broadband”. If this is laughable at this time, it still is. Despite the fact that dial up is faster than these “broadband” speeds, these companies are persisting with the same definitions. Worse still, these connections come with a data cap of few hundred Megs, which renders the whole experience and expense useless.
Adding to the woes is the persistent obsession of the Government of the day to levy a high service tax, which leaves no scope for expansion. Investing in the connection is not justified on the returns.
If this seems to be unreasonable to the readers, the legal system leaves much to be desired. Even though customer redressal needs to be done in a time bound manner, as per law, it takes up to 2 years or more to get a judgment. This explains the apathy of the consumer who doesn’t take the legal recourse either, in the event of deficiency of services.
Broadband in effect remains a pipe dream in India. Even though the benefits of moving towards the knowledge-based economy are immense, the policy makers are enscombed in their own shells, little realizing that it is an uphill task to access electronic resources. Despite the pessimism, I remain hopeful that one day India would truly become an IT superpower. Until that time, the wait is on.
from www.broadbandblog.com
Erstwhile in the socialist era and idealism, the government of the day straddled every sphere of economic activity like a behemoth. Understandably, it set up Department of Telecommunications to oversee the roll out of the Telecom services nationwide. However, in the past 50+ years of its existence, the telecom density remains one of the lowest in the world.
This has been besotted with high tariff structures, monopolization and anti-competitive policies of the state run organization. The telecom sector was opened up after the economic crises that swamped India in the 90’s- more so as ill-advised prescription of the donor agencies. Arguably, the competition from the private sector in theory should have led to better quality of infrastructure, which has not happened in real terms. After the voice calls went southwards in terms of pricing, Data services is the only way for these telecom services to survive meaningfully.
This remains the Achilles heel of what is widely perceived to be the fastest growing sector of the Indian economy. Internet services have so far still stuck in the dial up mode, despite the hype in the media about the broadband services. Indeed getting a decent connection is a far-fetched dream, almost a utopia. Frequent disconnections, rude and ignorant customer services, almost nil technical support are all reflective of a developing economy gone horribly wrong.
To be honest, after the IT meltdown of the 2000, there is an excess capacity. I remember dynamic Dewang Mehta who campaigned tirelessly within the corridors of power for bandwidth; his efforts bore fruit. However, as the problems faced by the Telco’s all over-the last mile access remained a big hurdle. Its true that bandwidth costs have come down, yet the benefit of lower cost has not yet percolated down to the end customers. Read as home users.
Most of the service providers chose to concentrate only in the major metros as judged by the paying capacity of the customers. However, they ignored the benefits of the first mover advantage in smaller towns and cities, which were left to be serviced by the Government. Internet through cable was the first foray in the “broadband” arena. It was easy to supply bandwidth to local cable operators and sign up customers with alluring offers, none of which were forthcoming. The download speeds of 16kbps onwards were advertised as “Broadband”. If this is laughable at this time, it still is. Despite the fact that dial up is faster than these “broadband” speeds, these companies are persisting with the same definitions. Worse still, these connections come with a data cap of few hundred Megs, which renders the whole experience and expense useless.
Adding to the woes is the persistent obsession of the Government of the day to levy a high service tax, which leaves no scope for expansion. Investing in the connection is not justified on the returns.
If this seems to be unreasonable to the readers, the legal system leaves much to be desired. Even though customer redressal needs to be done in a time bound manner, as per law, it takes up to 2 years or more to get a judgment. This explains the apathy of the consumer who doesn’t take the legal recourse either, in the event of deficiency of services.
Broadband in effect remains a pipe dream in India. Even though the benefits of moving towards the knowledge-based economy are immense, the policy makers are enscombed in their own shells, little realizing that it is an uphill task to access electronic resources. Despite the pessimism, I remain hopeful that one day India would truly become an IT superpower. Until that time, the wait is on.
from www.broadbandblog.com
that's scary, this is why we need to define our own understanding of what Broadband is from a consumer POV, like I say, if we don't we lay ourselves open to a definition decided by money hungry corporates.
