(You) broadband data hogs should pay more ...

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Very pertinent points are made in that article... All that ISP's are doing is creating a marketing hype/strategy/gimmick to give out a feeling of loss by supplying bandwidth to end user. This is clearly seen with Indian ISP's as well..

What I understand is when I pay for an UL connection of fixed speed of say 512kbps then I am paying actually a rent for that much bandwidth. Now if I use full capacity of 512kbps 24x7 or use it occasionally is upto me only. I am paying the ISP their rent & should deal with that bandwidth myself.
It does not make me a bandwidth hog since I am not using more than what is allotted to me...

The cable TV argument is quite valid in this case, similarly... The usage & equipment cost is for one time only then it goes on for years until technology changes...
 
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Don't compare broadband in the US with broadband here. ISPs in that specific country and a few European countries laid their infrastructure years ago. Most Indian companies are still struggling to provide last-mile connections, and those that have managed have pretty much spoiled the city skylines. Apart from Reliance which has their own backbone, all other ISPs sublet bandwidth and gateways from one or two other operators, and those are bandwidth capped in the first place. So if Airtel leases out 500GB pipe bandwidth to 'x' ISP then 'x' has to manage all their geographies within 500GB. Similar to how airlines and hotels 'overbook', ISP's 'oversubscribe', so bandwidth management becomes an issue that different ISPs have different methods to handle. My ISP sublets from another ISP who in turn sublets from another ISP. The 'master' ISP has FUP, Level 1 ISP sells by total bandwidth (one-way) and my ISP has no FUP - I pay 750 bucks/mo for 768 down/500 up.

IINM only Airtel, Reliance and VSNL/BSNL/Tata have their own fiber backbones, all other ISP sublet from them. In addition, gateways are leased by bandwidth consumed, as India has very few gateways. Broadband penetration in the country is less than 5% of all internet users, and internet users are less than 0.5% of the total population of the country. It is still a luxury item, and the cost will remain high till penetration reaches sane levels and operators look at expanding the market as a source of revenue (similar to what happened in mobiles).

Thirdly, mobile phones continue to expand in their internet access capabilities and the usage of mobile for internet is a threat to broadband as well. You may not think of it like that, but a consumer who is downloading a ringtone is actually accessing a form of internet as it is data transfer (this is how the cellphone companies calculate internet usage). Over time, mobiles will overtake home internet access as the number one internet data device - they are already the number one in music purchases in the country, so this can't be very far away given the capabilities built into entry-level handsets now.

As of now, the desktop broadband user is a cow that can be milked, and this is a nice way of keeping the contention ratio high without having to invest in additional equipment. It's a clever move from the ISPs - but over time, they will be the losers as users migrate from the fixed line concept.
 
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broadband in india is not as good as foreign countries due to lack of technology and infrastructure

i think some major service provider like tata and reliance must bring revolution in field broadband services

just like how reliance reduced telecom rates in early 2003~04 and all other service providers were forced to reduce their rates due to competition

and also recently tata docomo brought another revolution in telecom sector by introducing pay per second plan and all service providers were forced to introduce pay per second plans due to unmatched competition from tata

similarly big firms like tata and reliance can reduce the broadband rates and eventually all others will reduce their rates
 
cranky said:
Don't compare broadband in the US with broadband here. ISPs in that specific country and a few European countries laid their infrastructure years ago. Most Indian companies are still struggling to provide last-mile connections, and those that have managed have pretty much spoiled the city skylines. Apart from Reliance which has their own backbone, all other ISPs sublet bandwidth and gateways from one or two other operators, and those are bandwidth capped in the first place. So if Airtel leases out 500GB pipe bandwidth to 'x' ISP then 'x' has to manage all their geographies within 500GB. Similar to how airlines and hotels 'overbook', ISP's 'oversubscribe', so bandwidth management becomes an issue that different ISPs have different methods to handle. My ISP sublets from another ISP who in turn sublets from another ISP. The 'master' ISP has FUP, Level 1 ISP sells by total bandwidth (one-way) and my ISP has no FUP - I pay 750 bucks/mo for 768 down/500 up.

IINM only Airtel, Reliance and VSNL/BSNL/Tata have their own fiber backbones, all other ISP sublet from them. In addition, gateways are leased by bandwidth consumed, as India has very few gateways. Broadband penetration in the country is less than 5% of all internet users, and internet users are less than 0.5% of the total population of the country. It is still a luxury item, and the cost will remain high till penetration reaches sane levels and operators look at expanding the market as a source of revenue (similar to what happened in mobiles).
Click to expand...

There is some problem with this hypothesis. Even though its correct to some extent but you do know that major chunk of internet connections are with these three biggies.. AIRTEL + Reliance + TATA.. Now they are not scarce on bandwidth & as of 2008 India had 18.5 Tbps of submarine cable connected, of which only 0.5 % was lit & rest left unused. :(

Also There is no price regulation for bandwidth resale in India & these three biggies decide all the resale prices themselves for other ISP's. They are the ones running gateways as well... So end user has to deal with data caps more if he chooses another ISP apart from these three.. but its not like they sell their bandwidth cheap to their end user customers themselves... (even though they can):@

Every company which gets into broadband has to invest hugely on infrastructure. But once its laid then its just runs like cable TV. Last mile connectivity will always be used as an excuse for expensive broadband.... As for capacity then India still has an oversupply of bandwidth which the cartel is not releasing to end users... Existing submarine capacity will double by 2011 when new cables will land in India....

I'd found some interesting links for my points...

Pacnet promises lowered internet prices in India - Forbes India -

Communications in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

cranky said:
Thirdly, mobile phones continue to expand in their internet access capabilities and the usage of mobile for internet is a threat to broadband as well. You may not think of it like that, but a consumer who is downloading a ringtone is actually accessing a form of internet as it is data transfer (this is how the cellphone companies calculate internet usage). Over time, mobiles will overtake home internet access as the number one internet data device - they are already the number one in music purchases in the country, so this can't be very far away given the capabilities built into entry-level handsets now.

As of now, the desktop broadband user is a cow that can be milked, and this is a nice way of keeping the contention ratio high without having to invest in additional equipment. It's a clever move from the ISPs - but over time, they will be the losers as users migrate from the fixed line concept.
Click to expand...

Don't think that wireless broadband will revolutionize the space... After all the backbone is the submarine cable & that bandwidth has to be purchased without any regulatory oversight... Wireless broadband has not killed wired one in countries where it has long implemented. Its just a misconception that it will help India overcome all the perils it faces in broadband...
 
HailStonE said:
Don't think that wireless broadband will revolutionize the space... After all the backbone is the submarine cable & that bandwidth has to be purchased without any regulatory oversight... Wireless broadband has not killed wired one in countries where it has long implemented. Its just a misconception that it will help India overcome all the perils it faces in broadband...
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I disagree. There is a huge chunk of land scape in India where there is no broadband infrastructure yet and 3G/ Wi-MAX would be cheaper to implement then Broadband in remote areas.

I guess in major countries the BB penetration was very high when wireless broadband was introduced and so it didnt have a major impact. but in a country like us where the BB penetration is absymally low my guess is it will act as a game changer in terms of connectivity and penetration at least (if not in terms of prices)

Airtel is not extending broadband connection to newer areas in Trivandrum, Kerala. The reason the rep gives is they are waiting for 3G broadband to roll out and they are not willing to invest in wireline infrastruture to extend BB in the outskirts of the city.
 
DarkAngel said:
I disagree. There is a huge chunk of land scape in India where there is no broadband infrastructure yet and 3G/ Wi-MAX would be cheaper to implement then Broadband in remote areas.

I guess in major countries the BB penetration was very high when wireless broadband was introduced and so it didnt have a major impact. but in a country like us where the BB penetration is absymally low my guess is it will act as a game changer in terms of connectivity and penetration at least (if not in terms of prices)

Airtel is not extending broadband connection to newer areas in Trivandrum, Kerala. The reason the rep gives is they are waiting for 3G broadband to roll out and they are not willing to invest in wireline infrastruture to extend BB in the outskirts of the city.
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Do you really believe that those three biggies will release bandwidth to end users or other ISP's easily.. my point is unless resale bandwidth is cheap, there will not be enough competition & players, which could drive the prices down. They control the bandwidth & landing stations along with the resale price... The biggies will control the broadband space unless govt. wakes up to current situation.

The way I see it is that its really hard to remain profitable for anybody without proper infrastructure & cheap bandwidth so even if new players come in they will have a tough time to remain sustainable & profitable with such high prices.. most of them will be in the position to be taken over by biggies. Reliance could do something like mobile telephony prices but then you do know that the mobile scene is in huge losses already 'coz of such price wars... it isn't viable for most players already...

Unless there is regulation for pricing & govt seeing the big picture noting is going to change... And rest assured these big three will do all in their capacity to delay it as much as they can... ;)
 
18.5 Tbps of submarine cable connected, of which only 0.5 % was lit & rest left unused.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately bandwidth is about a lot more than the undersea cable. There are point-to-point links after the cable surfaces, and all of them need to be upgraded to ensure the speed of the overall delivery system.

I worked *very* closely with the single biggest undersea cable company in the world (we have a few members here who work with the same organisation and none of us can reveal names in public due to confidentiality agreement - but you should be able to guess pretty much who it is) and figured out the pipe itself is only part of the story. Every link in the chain matters, and not all links have the same capacity, or you run at the speed of the slowest link.

Wireless is going to be the game changer in India - there is absolutely no doubt about that. Today, mobile is already one of the foremost devices for internet access and it's only going to get better or them as screens get better and speeds increase. It makes much more sense for an operator to provide wireless access, as the cost is much lower in the long term. Though I get the angst at not being able to properly experience broadband because of data transfer caps on fast wired connections, this is the way it is going to be, unless, like me, you luck out with an ISP with decent service and decent plans.

Ultimately there will be two audiences - those who transfer and store data and those who use data as part of their everyday lives. Wireless caters excellently to the latter, the former have no option but to stay on wired lines.
 
^.. Forget future expansion.. but are we using even the existing capacity. I am sure when those cables were laid then they did had in mind min no. of users they can cram into it. So its a moot point that they have to upgrade point to point links every now or then when user base increases. The existing system is very well capable to provide cheap broadband but these companies will not go ahead with it...
 
India's a useless place for wired broadband. With so less computer penetration among the people, no company will care to invest in that direction.
 
6pack said:
India's a useless place for wired broadband. With so less computer penetration among the people, no company will care to invest in that direction.
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Its lack of vision of our policy makers. They don't know shit about broadband, Internet, computers or anything with technology written all over it... India has other problems to exploit rather then doing something revolutionary.... :(

I wonder how we perceive ourselves as IT superpower... :S
 
^that seems like a "sitting on the fence" version of fup to me. hardly anything in it. it seems more like data downloaders are justifying downloading huge amounts of data than trying to question why the fup is put in place. also the author did not ask the isp why a small amount of users can threaten the experience of other users of these broadband companies. seems like a hurriedly put blog post.
 
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