Why can't we get better internet with fast speeds and large data caps?

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6pack said:
i just got online after BSNL in my area kept me away from internet for past 7 days continuously. It was already down from Jan 30 to Feb 4th previously. :@

They do this every month and i don't have internet connectivity for around 10-12 days in a month. That's around 33% of downtime and many people in my area are at their wits end.

That's got to be annoying.

6pack said:
@mgcarley, sending an open invitation to you to start services of Hayai in my small city - nallasopara. I'm sure the existing customers of BSNL will jump ship if you can give us rates comparable to BSNL.

The only other players here are providing wireless internet at blazing speeds of 144kbps! Tata photon, Airtel, Reliance all advertise upto 2Mbps for around 700-800 a month but in reality all you get is just 144kbps.

I'd switch if its around 1k max a month and speed is ~1Mbps. I don't even want 5 or 8 Mbps. Just a working connection that wont stop is required.
Although we don't have any services that are only 1mbit/s, depending on your data usage, either our data plans or wireless plans might work for you. We've got plans from 5GB for 299 to 30GB for 649 including tax on Wireless and data plans starting at Rs550 including tax plus data usage (at Rs10/GB including tax), so Rs1k would get you 45GB in that case.
 
mgcarley said:
If by "community hubs" you mean like a LAN, there's going to need to be some regulatory and legal changes first - under most of the acts relating to telecommunications in India, if you operate a network without a license, you're in trouble (well, in theory... guess it depends how zealous the local law enforcers are).

Of course, if you want to do the whole thing on flash drives and DVDs, that's fine, but as I recall, there used to be a DVD-wala coming to my mother in law's society a couple of times a week, so it's already in place in some areas :D

they are working right now under the cable operators as hubs in which the content is not always you wanted. the exception in case would be subscribers of 5net in mumbai where the hubs are as good as any web hosts . they have almost all the data available on their hubs.

apart from that community hubs is catching on in those newer redeveloped societies in mumbai. as matter of fact the residents insist they have the new infrastructure in place as a pre condition.
 
ggt said:
they are working right now under the cable operators as hubs in which the content is not always you wanted. the exception in case would be subscribers of 5net in mumbai where the hubs are as good as any web hosts . they have almost all the data available on their hubs.

apart from that community hubs is catching on in those newer redeveloped societies in mumbai. as matter of fact the residents insist they have the new infrastructure in place as a pre condition.
Yes but the crucial difference here is that Fivenet is a licensed operator. But they don't own the infrastructure they use, either - that belongs to the cablewalas. I may be oversimplifying it here, but effectively the cablewalas themselves are not offering a service, they are merely the operators delivery mechanism, and they would typically be the company that is responsible in the DoT's eyes.

An infrastructure license is relatively easy to obtain, but all that does is allow you to put cables in the ground. But the license for actually operating a service on any given infrastructure is a whole different ballgame, and significantly more expensive - and more difficult to obtain.
 
mgcarley said:
Yes but the crucial difference here is that Fivenet is a licensed operator. But they don't own the infrastructure they use, either - that belongs to the cablewalas. I may be oversimplifying it here, but effectively the cablewalas themselves are not offering a service, they are merely the operators delivery mechanism, and they would typically be the company that is responsible in the DoT's eyes.

An infrastructure license is relatively easy to obtain, but all that does is allow you to put cables in the ground. But the license for actually operating a service on any given infrastructure is a whole different ballgame, and significantly more expensive - and more difficult to obtain.
so by your logic i suppose in the suburbs of mumbai reliance is ahead in that front because i was told that reliance owns all the street light towers placed along the streets and i see a lot of optical fibre cables lying tied on them. So If the last mile consumer is to be considered they are well ahead in that respect you suggest ?
 
ggt said:
so by your logic i suppose in the suburbs of mumbai reliance is ahead in that front because i was told that reliance owns all the street light towers placed along the streets and i see a lot of optical fibre cables lying tied on them. So If the last mile consumer is to be considered they are well ahead in that respect you suggest ?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "ahead".

Most operators have cable going all over the place in some form or other. Bharti favours underground and faces very few outages. I can't say one way or the other about Reliance - perhaps you can fill me in. It's nice that they have fiber going relatively near to the consumer, but the problem is, aerial cabling (fiber or copper) is not very sound - it's prone to various problems which can cause interruptions in service, but it is cheaper than paying for the civil works required for digging up roads and putting cables in there.

Also, despite there being fiber tied to the light poles, you're not getting it directly in to your premises. Last I checked it went up to a device on the terrace which then turned the signal in to either DSL or in some cases, an ethernet cable. The fact that the device on the terrace requires power is also a bit of a downside, especially in the suburbs. There's nothing really wrong per se with this type of network, but with the way it's been implemented too many things can go wrong, for my liking (cable severances, electricity outages and so forth). In a country or city where there were less extremes of weather/sociopathic cablewalas/power outages/etc, using aerial cabling might prove equally as robust as any underground network.

But more than that, I would also be concerned about how they use that infrastructure than the infrastructure itself... After all, most people are still on plans under 2mbit/s, even though they have 10 and 20mbit/s plans available. My question therefore would be "why build this fabulous new network if you're not going to offer high-speed services on it?"

On the other hand, we're building a GPON network which requires no powered devices to speak of, up until your house, but if you have a UPS at your home and the power goes out, the internet should keep on chugging away.
 
By ahead i meant they have the license as an operator.
As for with reliance i was confused is that during my engineering studies in optical fibre communication subject our professor had claimed that reliance was planning to enter broadband space in a big way. That way never arrived i guess.
Also when i had earlier asked similar question in te many suggested since they were launching 3g services they were utilising it.
Currently i Am using their 3g services and if their broadband services do come with similar speed and attractive pricing i may jump on their train right away.
 
why build this fabulous new network if you're not going to offer high-speed services on it

its cause normally when a company buys tech it gets the latest tech being offered on the market. its another matter whether they want to use it to its max or not. speed is the in-thing here to advertise. Like I've seen here - everyone advertises broadband at the speed of light or say 21 Mbps etc. In reality all the plans geared towards the general public, which is their target audience is just 256Kbps to 4 MBps at insane costs. Its like there's a written rule somewhere that as speed increases, cost increases exponentially. Its like the private companies and the govt. is telling us - We're Indians in a third world country. So we don't need high speeds. High internet speed is a luxury. Those who need it, can start by paying exorbitantly per month.
 
ggt said:
By ahead i meant they have the license as an operator.

I still don't follow. Tata and Bharti - even MTNL, BSNL and every other major operator have got fiber running all over the place (or at least are leasing fiber from someone), they could just as easily provide FTTH with some minor adjustments to their networks, but based on the way things are going in the DSL market, it seems unlikely that any of them will be migrating any time soon, and it might be a while before any of them are upgrading their plans. Airtel seems to be getting more stingy by the week, MTNL and BSNL are heamorrhaging money. Tata seems to be sitting somewhat idle at the moment - I've spoken to several people at their BKC campus but there doesn't seem to be much up their sleeves, either, or maybe they're just not very talkative.

ggt said:
As for with reliance i was confused is that during my engineering studies in optical fibre communication subject our professor had claimed that reliance was planning to enter broadband space in a big way. That way never arrived i guess.

How long ago was this? They're already a large-ish player, and at the moment, interestingly, one of the better options considering the way Airtel seems to be pissing off it's customers recently.

ggt said:
Also when i had earlier asked similar question in te many suggested since they were launching 3g services they were utilising it.

Currently i Am using their 3g services and if their broadband services do come with similar speed and attractive pricing i may jump on their train right away.
Out of the 3G players, I think their tariffs are among the better options as well - Docomo's are nearly identical I think but Reliance has more options.

For wired connections Reliance is the only player to have higher speed options at a "reasonable" price - 20mbit/s for 2999 (20GB cap), but this beats Airtel's 30 and 50mbit/s for 7999 & 8999 respectively (although these have 200GB caps, so value for money they're better, just not affordable), and Tata's 100mbit/s option for 3500 (10GB cap).

We're aiming to be even better than all of these players, but as I've said countless times on the other forums, we have our niche and we're sticking to it - we're not interested in providing services like 256-512kk or anything so it's only the plans mentioned here that we would be comparable to, and in that respect we'll be winning by miles.

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6pack said:
its cause normally when a company buys tech it gets the latest tech being offered on the market.

But it's not the latest tech that's being deployed. It might look like it, but it's not.

6pack said:
its another matter whether they want to use it to its max or not. speed is the in-thing here to advertise. Like I've seen here - everyone advertises broadband at the speed of light or say 21 Mbps etc.

21mbit/s is obselete. The newest 3G networks are doing 42mbit/s and as of yesterday, equipment is now available to do 80. On 3G (not even LTE).

6pack said:
In reality all the plans geared towards the general public, which is their target audience is just 256Kbps to 4 MBps at insane costs. Its like there's a written rule somewhere that as speed increases, cost increases exponentially. Its like the private companies and the govt. is telling us - We're Indians in a third world country. So we don't need high speeds. High internet speed is a luxury. Those who need it, can start by paying exorbitantly per month.
I've noticed that this seems to be the mentality. This is unfortunate, and I plan to completely shatter it and expel this myth that high-speed internet has to be uber-expensive.
 
planning to launch in kolkata ????????.. its one of the most neglected city in whole india.. only bsnl is the player.. but i dnt wnt to commment on their servc and downtime,, relnc and airtel present but crap plans... so out of question... looking forward to hayai...
 
multi said:
democracy omg wht r u saying :ashamed:

just some media showing few day prime time coverage for such things , it will get noticed & we democratic citizens forget another day .
& our this billion citizens our jokers whether its politician or media keep creating issues from corruption / snakes /stones blah blah ..... breaking news .....

heavy TRPs , why our jokers need such issue which whole countrymen not listen or get them eyecandy towards channels or votes in election :ashamed:

our country is driven by god , I wish one day these media find some connection btw this mbps speed & our god , that day might these jokers can do something towards it :clap:
[Sorry for being off-topic]

But your sentence "our country is driven by god" reminded me of the following :- :lol: :ohyeah: :bleh:

MUMBAI

Friday 11 July 11.45 pm

America Mein Ek Bohot Bada Scientist Hua Karta Tha Jo Bhagwan Par Bilkul Hi Yakeen Nahi Rakhta Tha. Ek Din Use Pata Chala Ki India Mein Log Bhagwan Ko Bohot Maante Hain, Toh Wo India Aaya Aur Bohot Jagah Par Ghooma, Magar Yahaan Se America Jaate Hi Sidha Church Mein Chala Gaya Aur Bhagwan Ke Charno Pe Maatha Tek Kar Prarthna Karne Laga... Ab Saare Log Hairaan! Bhai Isse Kya Hogaya Hai ??? ... Ye Fultoo Nastik Aadmi Aastik Kaise Hogaya Hai !!! ... Jaise Hi Wo Bahar Aaya, Log Puchhne Lage, Bhai Kya Baat Hai Aapko Kisi Bhagwan Ne Darshan Toh Nahi De Diye India Mein... Toh Wo Bola Nahi Nahi... Maine Uss Desh Ko Bohot Hi Gaur Se Dekha Aur Mujhe Laga Ki Ye Desh Bohot Hi Vichitra Hai... Yahan Par Koi Ek Aisi Bhasha Nahi Hai Jise Saare Desh Ki Janta Jaanti Ho, Yahan Par Hindu Musalmaan Se Nafrat Karte Hain Aur Musalmaan Hindu Se... Unchi Jaat Ke Log Chhoti Jaat Ke Log Se Nafrat Karte Hain... Sheher Ke Log Sheher Mein Bahar Se Aane Wale Logon Se Nafrat Karte Hain, Yahaan Tak Ki Car Wale Log Autowale Se Nafrat Karte Hain !!! ... Itni Nafrat Bhari Padi Hai Iss Desh Mein Aur Fir Bhi Ye Desh Chal Raha Hai, Tarakki Kar Raha Hai... Toh Batao Ise Bhagwan Ke Sivaye Aur Kaun Chala Sakta Hai? Mujhe Toh Yakeen Hogaya Ki Bhagwan Hai!

:clap: :cool2: :tongue:
 
deep16 said:
planning to launch in kolkata ????????.. its one of the most neglected city in whole india.. only bsnl is the player.. but i dnt wnt to commment on their servc and downtime,, relnc and airtel present but crap plans... so out of question... looking forward to hayai...
Absolutely. You should probably see the FAQs page on IBF (I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link to it here) - the same which will be on our website (by popular request).

reddy8155 said:
Check out this article on arstechnica. Netflix says it costs ISP's a penny to carry a GB of data on their last mile network.

Netflix: ISPs who charge by the gigabyte are ridiculous
There's two sides to the Netflix/ISP battle, and I should point out that this has a lot more to do with them being charged by the GB for connecting to ISP networks, and that there's a lot more than meets the eye about the whole thing which many people don't know about or realize.

Netflix historically has been a peer with many ISPs, which has afforded it some luxuries that it now no longer will have. Every peering agreement basically stipulates that each peer has to have approximately balanced traffic levels for both ingoing and outgoing, and that additionally, a peer may ONLY send traffic to the network that it's peering with, and NOT use the peers network as transport to get to another network.

However, the time has come now that Netflix is sending more than 5x the amount of traffic that it receives, which violates the peering agreement, and now puts it in to a different category of connectivity. It is no longer a peer, it is a content provider, and they are bound to slightly different rules and slightly different pricing.

In the US, things are far different to the situation in India - whereas 80+% of their traffic is domestic, 80+% of Indian traffic heads to, you guessed it, the US. As such, most traffic between ISPs in the US is peered, and peered traffic costs sweet bugger all when broken down to a per GB basis. On the other hand, Indian ISPs might be subjected to an equivalent price per GB of up to Rs34 (worst case scenario, it's possible to negotiate this to be much much lower - under Rs10/GB in some cases, but not Re1/GB... yet, even for BSNL, who buys traffic in multiples of 10gbit/s).

Furthermore, peered traffic in India costs if done at NIXI - that price is set at Rs25 for incoming traffic, minus Rs25 for outgoing traffic. This seems to be the ONLY internet exchange in the entire world who charges for usage, a practice which I think is utterly ridiculous. So for some ISPs which might have 1:1 traffic ratios, no problem. But most ISPs don't - many that I've spoken to are talking about ratios of 3:1 in: out, plus the 3 lakhs/year subscription fee. At 1Gbit/s and 80% utilization, this could work out to be something like 44 lakhs per month, or about Rs17/GB, making this traffic easily the most expensive in India.

This creates a problem for Indian ISPs in that, they have these (relatively speaking) high operational costs because 1. Most traffic goes overseas and 2. Peered traffic is charged in a ridiculous fashion (peered traffic is supposed to be a flat-rate, and very very cheap - after all, it only involves pulling a cable from one side of a room in to another side of the same room). In Finland they charge about 250 euros a month to peer at 1gbit/s, and about 1000 euros a month for 10gbit/s peering - no usage charges. In Amsterdam it's also quite cheap (I forget the exact prices, but it's similarly cheap). Hayai New Zealand pays about NZ$700 per month including transport for 1Gbit/s (exchange rate is about Rs34 to NZ$1).

Indias pricing model for peered traffic also creates another unusual situation - there have been cases where I've been shown screenshots of traceroutes for users getting traffic from Delhi to Delhi (for example) - and seeing that traffic go via Singapore. Why would they do this? International traffic is cheaper, peering in Singapore is much cheaper (and flat-rate). More recently I was alarmed when I was alerted of traffic between MTNL Delhi and MTNL Mumbai going via... Paris.

Now, on the other side of the coin, unlimited access per customer is a bit of a farce, but then it also comes down to reasonable pricing as well. If the cost to the ISP for the traffic is, let's say, 1 cent (as above), then they shouldn't be charging a full $1 for it. 10 cents seems much more reasonable. Or even 5 - whatever covers the costs and gives them a sufficiently healthy margin.

ISPs should be making it their duty to cache and peer with as many entities as possible. Again, citing practices I'm seeing outside of India, for example, Sky NZ (the only DTH provider in NZ) has recently launched a service called "iSky". Basically it allows you to watch the same channels you subscribe to normally through their website.

NZ is a country which doesn't have any unlimited internet plans. Hasn't had any since the dial-up days. But Sky has partnered with a number of ISPs as a content provider in order to deliver this service in such a way that the customers don't get charged for using iSky because the ISP considers it to be traffic originating from within their own network and doesn't charge the customer for it - and I believe that the same should be able to happen in India.

Which brings me on to my service. While we are having some flat-rate plans, they're a bit on the expensive side for some people (I've explained why in another forum, but we have our reasons, and it has a lot to do with the pricing mentioned above, and also that we aren't offering any flat-rate pricing where the speed is less than 5mbit/s, and that even IF we had a fair usage policy with solid numbers, the lowest plan wouldn't be less than about 200GB). Because of the starting price for flat-rate, we also have data plans, which are Rs550 (which covers all infrastructure, it's a brand new FTTH network we're building) + data usage.

This might look awful, until you see what it all costs: we're only charging Rs10/GB for data (including tax). And it's delivered at 100mbit/s. BSNL charges not less than Rs200 for data, most others between Rs400-600 depending on the plan. So it works out very reasonable, and even compared to some ISP's "unlimited" plans (which as we know, are rarely unlimited these days), we do pretty well.

Since the speed is so high, we have 2 options for data plans: 1 is prepaid, which means you just buy however much data you think you'll need whenever you want (with validity of either 360 days or until used), the other is a post-paid option whereby you limit the bill to any amount you please, and the system will invoice you at the end of the month for your usage up to that limit. So hypothetically, if you set your bill limit to be Rs1,000, and you use 20GB in that month, you'll be sent a bill for Rs750 only (Rs550 infrastructure + 20GB x Rs10 = 750).

The lowest denomination we can charge to is 50 paise, which conveniently works out to about 50MB, so we charge to the nearest 50MB - but 50 paise here or there shouldn't concern anyone, really.

But wait, there's more!

Certain traffic is not counted in this data usage (see the iSky bit above). Additionally, certain other things like P2P transfers between customers are not counted either (makes a good breeding ground for things like DC++) and we're even running a private torrent tracker and a special caching system which can even cache bittorrent/rapidshare/etc traffic from outside the network. That is, we're doing everything we possibly can to try and not have to charge customers for data usage.

If there was a Netflix in India, I'd probably have them connect to my network as a content provider and charge them accordingly (after all, they charge their customers for the digital downloads), and in turn, traffic to/from Netflix would not be counted - in other words, free. ISPs in the US could easily do the same thing, and by charging a reasonable rate to Netflix, and not charging customers for the privilege of using Netflix (that would be double-dipping), then customers wouldn't have to worry about customers busting their data caps/fair usage policies by downloading a couple of HD movies a month and Netflix could be happy because they can deliver bandwidth to customers easily enough without the customers potentially coming back and blaming Netflix for high bandwidth charges.

..........Phew, I think that's all :D
 
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probably or government lack brains or they don't want to invest money in purchasing bandwidth from other countries
 
Wow! Never knew the Indian scenario. And regarding peering, that article had a link to another one about a fight between level 3 and comcast. Similar to what you said.

And with NIXI, i'm guessing all the big ISP's have a +ve traffic and get money. If Airtel had to pay money, they would shake up the whole system. :P

Really agree about caching. A lot of indian sites seem to be hosted overseas(from what i can guess from a chrome extension, even TE is hosted in Virginia, US).

Excellent article. Eagerly waiting for your launch.
 
Is Visakhapatnam in your plan anywhere in the near future? Eagerly waiting for something like this. My city is filled with people needing good services and technology but there is no one to give us what is required. BSNL is the only main player, though airtel, YOU, reliance and all the others are present, they have amazingly funny plans and donot come into the scenario at all. Hoping I will get a Hayai connection soon:)
 
ksanket said:
probably or government lack brains or they don't want to invest money in purchasing bandwidth from other countries

I'd go with the brains thing. I'm not sure what you mean about investing money in purchasing bandwidth from other countries.
reddy8155 said:
Wow! Never knew the Indian scenario. And regarding peering, that article had a link to another one about a fight between level 3 and comcast. Similar to what you said.

Level 3 carries Netflix' traffic.

reddy8155 said:
And with NIXI, i'm guessing all the big ISP's have a +ve traffic and get money. If Airtel had to pay money, they would shake up the whole system. :P

I wouldn't be entirely surprised. We're planning to start our own internet exchange where we'll charge something like Rs30k a month for unlimited traffic at 1gbit/s (ISP to ISP or ISP to Data Center only - peering agreements also forbid using peers to send traffic to other networks, so that would stop any unscrupulous ISP using this kind of link to send/receive traffic from international destinations trying to get a cheaper ride).

reddy8155 said:
Really agree about caching. A lot of indian sites seem to be hosted overseas(from what i can guess from a chrome extension, even TE is hosted in Virginia, US).

As mentioned, some 80-odd percent of traffic goes in that direction, according to some ISPs.

reddy8155 said:
Excellent article. Eagerly waiting for your launch.

Not really an article, just justifying my position on the matter, since I am encouraging (to a certain extent) pay-for-what-you-use model in exchange for extreme speeds, as in, whatever your network card will allow (but yes, we have flat-rate pricing plans too).

I disagree with use of the word unlimited, as it's often used wrongly in advertising - and it's rarely true - but instead my thoughts are that it should be called "flat-rate" as in pricing, rather than "unlimited" as in usage. At least then it's more-clear-cut what's on offer, and so long as the speeds are still reasonably close to what it advertised and so long as any "fair usage policy" that is implemented is actually fair to the consumer.

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pranaywhiz said:
Is Visakhapatnam in your plan anywhere in the near future? Eagerly waiting for something like this. My city is filled with people needing good services and technology but there is no one to give us what is required. BSNL is the only main player, though airtel, YOU, reliance and all the others are present, they have amazingly funny plans and donot come into the scenario at all. Hoping I will get a Hayai connection soon:)
No offense, but I don't know where that is - I'll have to check it on Google maps and get back to you. If it's on the way to or nearby some other city which I know we are planning to launch in, then there's no reason why not.

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

Wow, that is really a blank spot as far as our anticipated coverage is concerned, however, you might be in luck since it appears that it MIGHT be on a route that is on the way from Chennai up to Kolkata. I can't say when, but I can say we'll look at it - and if there is no competition, it's even better.
 
mgcarley said:
[/COLOR]Wow, that is really a blank spot as far as our anticipated coverage is concerned, however, you might be in luck since it appears that it MIGHT be on a route that is on the way from Chennai up to Kolkata. I can't say when, but I can say we'll look at it - and if there is no competition, it's even better.
as far as is kolkata is concerned i can assure u we are thirsty of gd bandwidth and decent data limits... hayai is welcome in kolkata
 
deep16 said:
as far as is kolkata is concerned i can assure u we are thirsty of gd bandwidth and decent data limits... hayai is welcome in kolkata
Believe me, I'm well aware of the situation in Kolkata. I get several requests DAILY asking when we'll be coming there. I'm sure it'll be a good place for us, but I also understand Kolkata is a relatively price sensitive market too, and we're... not.

The level of service we're providing comes with the slightly higher cost (but not exponentially more expensive as is the case with other providers) - we don't have any unlimited plans for 500 or even 1000, if you get my drift, but we also don't provide anything less than 5mbit/s (Rs1999 including tax), either. We do have data plans starting at Rs550 (infrastructure) + data at Rs10/GB. And wireless plans from 5-30GB per month at about 8mbit/s for between Rs299 and Rs649, so we still cover a lot of bases.
 
Since the speed is so high, we have 2 options for data plans: 1 is prepaid, which means you just buy however much data you think you'll need whenever you want (with validity of either 360 days or until used), the other is a post-paid option whereby you limit the bill to any amount you please, and the system will invoice you at the end of the month for your usage up to that limit. So hypothetically, if you set your bill limit to be Rs1,000, and you use 20GB in that month, you'll be sent a bill for Rs750 only (Rs550 infrastructure + 20GB x Rs10 = 750).

so you charge for the ftth infrastructure every month? And actual charges for the data of 20Gb is just Rs.200? Why not charge a flat Rs 3K or so in starting for the ftth cable and give Rs750 worth of Gb's to the end user?
 
6pack said:
so you charge for the ftth infrastructure every month?

This applies to data plans only, but yes. Certain parts of the infrastructure are a recurring cost every year.

6pack said:
And actual charges for the data of 20Gb is just Rs.200?

Correct.

6pack said:
Why not charge a flat Rs 3K or so in starting for the ftth cable and give Rs750 worth of Gb's to the end user?
We can put fiber in the ground between you and our PoP (that's a fixed one-time cost), but as mentioned, the really big lines between our PoP and our central office currently cost us a certain amount every year.

HOWEVER, we are looking for ways to reduce that cost, including changing from rated connections between the CO and the PoPs to straight-up dark fiber, which would allow us to put 10, 40 or even 100x as much data through the same lines for a fairly insignificant increase in cost over the rated connection, especially if we change the terms of the contract to be 5, 10 or even 15 years with an IRU (basically, irrevocable rights to use it as we wish).

All this will reduce the cost per subscriber significantly, as the number of subscribers increases from our initial targets of about 400 in any given area to anything up to about 8000 subscribers feeding from a single PoP (this would also result in significantly increased DEDICATED bandwidth per subscriber too), and I would hope that the infrastructure cost could reduce from it's current Rs550 price tag to Rs200 or less - maybe even 100-150.

Furthermore, research suggests that higher installation costs would put a lot of people off. It works out better for us to amortize the costs and work it out on a monthly basis.
 
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