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Rolling Out Broadband Internet, On The Cheap 206

Posted by Hemos from the making-it-available dept.
Mathamota writes "The goverment controlled telephone company in the city of Kolkata (Calcutta), India is providing a Internet access service called DIAS (Direct Internet Access System) which provides 24 hour connection at 128kbps (when the phone is being used, it drops to 64). However, the best part is that the cost of Plan I (which has a data transfer limit of 500 megs) is only Rs 825 ($ 16.50) per month, all inclusive. The technology used in this stuff is quite interesting, and there is a whitepaper available at the site of the company which developed the system." At first glance, it sounds just like plain old ISDN; but after reading the white paper, it's a bit different. Cool idea.
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Rolling Out Broadband Internet, On The Cheap More

Rolling Out Broadband Internet, On The Cheap

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  • Looks like a good idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by override11 ( 516715 ) <cpeterson@gts.gaineycorp.com> on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:37PM (#5729273) Homepage
    But 128K is still slow, after having a cable modem and unlimited monthly downloads, I cant go back! I mean cmon, 500 meg download limit? I do that in an hour on kazaa lite. :)

    • Re:Looks like a good idea (Score:5, Funny)

      by gid ( 5195 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:43PM (#5729313) Homepage
      Not on a 128kbps connection you can't. :)
    • But 128K is still slow

      And not broadband, if you consider this topic [slashdot.org] a few days ago, when it was rulled that a company cannot advertise a 128k capped cable modem as "broadband" in the UK.

    • Speaking as someone who has 128k internet at home, I can say with some authority that while it isn't nearly as fast as I would like it to be (Internet2 would be nice), it is one hell of a lot better than dialup access, even with a 56k "turbo" (as AOL once hilariously put it) modem.
    • As someone from India, let me enlighten you a little on the Telecom history down here...

      Initially, the Telecom dept. was completely under Govt. control. So was internet and all international links (VSNL). Back in 1995, 33.6kbps access used to cost Rs.15,000 per 500 hrs.

      Then, as things started becoming a little more .. arhm .. 'Open', there were alternate telcos, alternate ISPs, and these people had to improve their act. The dialup internet access charges finally settled at Rs. 750 for 100hrs of access.

      At

  • It is ISDN (Score:3, Funny)

    by x0n ( 120596 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:37PM (#5729274) Homepage Journal
    It's Indian-Style Dodgy Networking.

    - Oisin

  • download cap (Score:2, Funny)

    by pmacwill ( 316644 )
    500MB limit?
    500MB a day right?

  • hah! (Score:5, Funny)

    by syle ( 638903 ) <syle@@@waygate...org> on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:38PM (#5729282) Homepage
    At first glance, it sounds just like plain old ISDN; but after reading the white paper, it's a bit different. Cool idea.
    Nice try! But, we know that editors aren't allowed to read the articles they link to. You won't fool us so easily, Hemos...

    If that is your real name.

  • What ifs... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vodak ( 119225 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:39PM (#5729285)
    The expansion of Internet access in anyway way is a good thing, but you must ask what will happen when this government ran internet service provider starts cracking down on it's citizens internet usage habits. Because it's a government ran internet service provider would the government be held accountable for file sharing crap going on?

  • Subsidies??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by foooo ( 634898 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:39PM (#5729288) Journal
    How much of this "low cost" is because of subsidies?

    I could (but would never) roll out low cost T1s to everyone in the USA for 10 bucks a month... just have the government pick up the tab.

    ~foooo
    • I'm sure a huge portion!

      Subsidies in India are huge. Farmers for instance can get electricity for practically free (and many rich Delhi people buy homes outside of the city to declare themselves farmers to get cheap electricity). Transportation (good train systems, and cheap buses everywhere) is also very heavily subsidized.
    • Well, if you won't give everyone a T1, can you at least give me one? I'll even triple your asking price!

  • This is not very Cheap for most Indians (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fozzy(pro) ( 267441 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:39PM (#5729289)
    The cost of this is not inexpensive if you consider what most indians make at a yearly level. Not to mention the cost of the phone or computer. It's a step in the right direction.

    Cheers to the government

    • Re:This is not very Cheap for most Indians (Score:5, Informative)

      by doktor-hladnjak ( 650513 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:49PM (#5729363)
      The cost of this is not inexpensive if you consider what most indians make at a yearly level. Not to mention the cost of the phone or computer. It's a step in the right direction.

      Yes, this is really not cheap, even for people making good money in India. A friend of mine was telling me how a couple of years ago, he got an offer of around $750/month, right out of college for some sort of programming job. He said this was an obscene amount of money, not just by the standards of the average Indian, but also by other friends who had gotten IT-related jobs. He seemed to think it was comparable to making close to 6 figures in USD. I've had other friends say things like "multiply by 60" to get the idea of how much lower the cost of everyday items (food, clothing, etc) is.

      So, the cost for this is something like 1/40 of even a well-off middle class Indian.

  • First reaction was "Great!" until I asked myself (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RLiegh ( 247921 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:40PM (#5729295) Homepage Journal
    What is the cost of living like in India?

    If it's decent, does that mean that there's a greater chance that Open Source will spread with the easier availability of iso's and ftp installs?

    • Re:First reaction was "Great!" until I asked mysel (Score:5, Interesting)

      by raju1kabir ( 251972 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:45PM (#5729330) Homepage
      Typical household income is about $1500/year. So that's like someone in the US paying $500/month for DSL.
      • "So that's like someone in the US paying $500/month for DSL."

        Soooo...your saying the prices are much better there?
      • Typical household income is about $1500/year. So that's like someone in the US paying $500/month for DSL.

        It would be better to compare it to the salaries of people in the areas where it is available (I don't have those fig'ers). Western countries have fairly even income distributions. In India you have the non-cash/barter economies in rural areas and the more comparable cash economies in cities. So the subsistance farmers [that don't have access to this service] drive the averages way down.

        It would s
    • It varies by region. In Kolkata, the "living wage" or minimum wage is about 2,200-2,400 Rs. per month, but the actual wage many people are paid is about half this (or less).

      Food prices in Rupees per kilogram, or per piece (I don't remember which), at the College Street Market (in Kolkata) when I was there in January of this year:
      potato 5, onion 5-6, peas 8, cabbage 3, bean 6, tomato 6, carrot 8, brinjal 8, gourd 5, palang 5, rohu fish (cut) 80, mutton 140, chicken 75.

      While it's cheap by U.S. standards, i

  • Etherlinx (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ih8apple ( 607271 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:41PM (#5729299)
    Have you guys heard of Etherlinx [etherlinx.com]?

    Apparently [gridtoday.com], they have their own way of rolling out cheap broadband. Anyone have any idea on whether their super-sized WiFi works?

  • isdn (Score:3, Funny)

    by papasui ( 567265 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:43PM (#5729310) Homepage
    Jeez and all this time I thought ISDN stood for 'Insanely stupid dial-up networking'.

  • Nice solution for the digital divide (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:44PM (#5729322)
    There are a lot of people out there that cannot afford $40+ a month for screaming fast Internet access. Many others simply won't pay. On the surface, this looks to be an excellent tool to help us bridge the digital divide. Let the "poor" kids have some decent Internet access.

    Plus, true 128 is soooo much faster that 56k (which is usually 28.8 - 44ish).
  • other than some bizarre anomolies like the cost of living in bombay being the highest in the world at one time, the average salary in india is miniscule compared to (say) the western world. $16 a month or so for net access is a 1/2 to 1/3 of what you can pay here in california for a much faster service.
  • "best part is that the cost of Plan I (which has a data transfer limit of 500 megs) is only Rs 825 ($ 16.50)"

    Sure, for us $16.50 doesn't sound bad, but in India where they obviously make more than we do (*sarcasm*)?
    Btw, what is this "Rs", CIA world factbook shows "Indian rupee (INR)" as being India's currency?

    • Rs is how Indians write rupees. Contrary to Western beliefs, rupees are not magical multicolored gems found in various pots/jars, held in a giant's wallet, or tallied in the lower right hand corner of a television screen.

    • and what the hell is this "$" thing? CIA world factbook shows USD as being USA currency.

      Many countries use dollar as their currency; so for offical purpose, US currency is designated as USD. Similarly, many countries use "Rupee" as currency, so Indian currency is abbreviated as INR (INdian Rupee).

      The plan being expensive or not should be based on regional pricing. 825 rupees a month for "always on" connection is cheaper by existing Indian pricing (if you are a moderate user).

      Yes, India IS poor, so almos

    • CIA world factbook shows "Indian rupee (INR)" as being India's currency?

      Just as the currency in the US is the USD, in the UK it's the GBP, in Switzerland it's the CHF. But not in daily life.

  • The real dirt (Score:2, Informative)

    by kewsh ( 655090 )
    After reading this article I msg'd a punjab I know on IRC for his insight. He told me his family back in India tried this service and found it to be much slower than 128k most of the time and outages were frequent. So I guess you can say the "cheap" price reflects the quality of the servers hosting the service.
    • Considering this service has just started, that too as a pilot project (available initially in one exchange per city), I'd have to say that your `punjab' friend was talking through his turban. :)

  • $16.50 is quite a lot of money

  • 128 kbps is hardly broadband (Score:4, Interesting)

    by squarooticus ( 5092 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:47PM (#5729347) Homepage
    That's about twice what a good modem offers these days. It might have better latency than a modem, but bandwidth? You can't get anything better than the poor-quality video streams from the web news sites with 128 kbps, and you certainly can't reliably stream 128 kbps MP3, which itself isn't CD-quality.

    I have 640/128 DSL, and while the 640 is nice and speedy and supports most of the media I want, the 128 up is terribly slow and won't even allow me to stream Oggs (192 kbps) from my home to my workplace.

    "Broadband" means something different now than it did 5 years ago.
    • quite true. See here. [zdnet.co.uk]

    • Re:128 kbps is hardly broadband (Score:4, Informative)

      by dissy ( 172727 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @02:13PM (#5729594)
      *sigh* and slashdot JUST had an article on this in the past week.

      > 128 kbps is hardly broadband

      How do you figure based on that information?

      Is a blue car fast?
      Is a baby that crys tall?
      Is a sharp knife long?

      > 128 kbps is hardly broadband

      128 kbps - this is a speed, measuring a type of bandwidth.
      is hardly - this is (basically) a logical 'not'.
      broadband - this is the type of carrier data is sent over.

      You realize if a pair of wires uses a protocol to send both IP data and any other data at all that isnt IP, it is broadband, EVEN if the IP data can only be sent at 10 bytes per second?

      The article describes this as having both phone/voice service as well as IP service over it.
      Unless they are actually encapsulating one form of data over the other, like true ISDN does, then it is broadband. period. nothing about the speed comes into play here.

      > "Broadband" means something different now than it did 5 years ago.

      No, its always meant the same thing from when the terms 'broadband' and 'baseband' were made. You are just using it incorrectly.

      • Sorry to disappoint you, but language is not static, and "broadband" has come to mean "high capacity." That's just the way it is.

        • Re:128 kbps is hardly broadband (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dissy ( 172727 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @02:46PM (#5729857)
          > Sorry to disappoint you, but language is not static, and "broadband" has come to
          > mean "high capacity." That's just the way it is.

          I don't care what it has come to mean to a few people. Those few are wrong. That's just the way it is.

          If you plan to redefine a word from what its been since the word was made, atleast have the decency to say so and not expect others to magically understand.

          Why even have words if the meanings are totally different and random from person to person? Thats why a language aggrees that a word means one particular thing, then its defined. That is what the dictonary is handy for.

          Websters defines broadband [reference.com] as:

          broadband

          adj 1: of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) 2: responding to or operating at a wide band of frequencies; "a broadband antenna"

          Other than in the marketing department of US based cable/dsl companys, and thus in their customers imaginations, where else is broadband known to mean anything other than what the dictionary defines it as?

          I guess you believe everything you hear on TV or that is forced down your throat from a corporation.
          • Long ago, I was as pedantic as you are regarding language, always nitpicking on details of the language that conflicted with the dictionary or with an 8th grade grammar book.

            Then, one day, I realized that the point of language is communication: despite what some English teachers might tell you, language isn't a static set of rules that were devised by some command authority, but is rather a fluid medium with which people exchange ideas.

            In this particular case, broadband has come to mean "high capacity."
            • In this particular case, broadband has come to mean "high capacity." That's how the vast majority---VAST majority---of people use it

              For the most part, I agree with you and feel the same way, but how do you respond to people who claim that Unix isn't an operating system? The vast majority of people think of an operating system as the GUI-based experience and the consumer-friendly applications you get when you buy a Windows or Macintosh machine. Therefore, Unix isn't an operating system (according to the m

              • Interesting question; but in this case, I don't actually think most people have a clear idea of what an operating system. My father heard about Linux two years ago and wanted to install it, and had no problem with me referring to it as an operating system.

                Remember that I'm not saying broadband can't refer to what the the other guy said; I'm just saying that the term has at the very least been overloaded to mean what I said, and that the term has come to mean exactly what I said to the vast majority of peo
            • > Then, one day, I realized that the point of language is communication:

              But we are miscommunicating due to not agreeing on what this word means.

              > In this particular case, broadband has come to mean "high capacity."

              Simply reading this thread will go to prove why this is a silly argument.

              Other than the people that define broadband as the term was invented to be used, you have alot of people on slashdot, each one saying something that generally begins with "Well, i personally think broadband means __
              • If so many people are confused as to what broadband means (Which seems to be alot of people posting in this thread, including one persons reply to my first post, no not yourself) how can that possibly help make communication better?

                Well, use context. It helps. When someone says "128k isn't broadband," use the context clue of "128k" to mean that they're referring to bandwidth capacity, not broad/baseband and what's actually going over the wire.

                If someone says "my broadband connection carries my voice,
                • > When someone says "128k isn't broadband," use the context clue of "128k" to mean
                  > that they're referring to bandwidth capacity, not broad/baseband and what's
                  > actually going over the wire.

                  What? huh?

                  Someone said "128k isn't broadband"
                  That statement is false.

                  Both words are present, so they were clearly referring to both its bandwidth, and its broadband status, in the same line, then making a comparison saying the two are not equal.

                  Even using your statement, and i assume they are talking about
          • Well, you also have to look at the root meaning of words. Broad and Band.

            1 a : having ample extent from side to side or between limits "broad shoulders" b : having a specified extension from side to side "made the path 10 feet broad" 2 : extending far and wide : SPACIOUS "the broad plains"

            And band, which has about six definitions for two.. all either meaning a strip of something, or someting to hold something together.

            The opposite of broad being narrow.. broadband would have to be more broad than
            • > Well, you also have to look at the root meaning of words. Broad and Band.

              Actually the term was coined and is meant as one single word.
              The oposit is baseband

              Also the dictonary [reference.com] agrees with me :}


              broadband

              adj 1: of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) 2: responding to or operating at a wide band of frequencies; "a broadband antenna"

              communications - A transmission medium c

      • You realize if a pair of wires uses a protocol to send both IP data and any other data at all that isnt IP, it is broadband, EVEN if the IP data can only be sent at 10 bytes per second?

        It's my impression that it's broadband if it sends data using multiple frequencies or frequency ranges. After all, you can send IP and IPX over a modem connection, but that doesn't make it broadband. Modems have ~8KHz of bandwidth, cable modems (at least DOCSIS) have 8MHz (downstream), that's wider by a factor of 1k (2^

  • Highlights issues w/ US ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drgroove ( 631550 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:47PM (#5729349)
    This article really serves to highlight issues w/ US-based ISPs and the services they offer.

    What are the options for a US citizen to get online right now?
    1. Pay AOL || MSN || Earthlink $20> / mo. for dialup
    2. Pay local Cable or Telephony Monopoly $50> / mo. for "broadband"
    US ISP have some serious issues w/ their services - essentially, theres price fixing in both dialup and DSL/Cable options, which the FCC and the FTC are ignoring; despite continuous adoption of broadband, prices have yet to drop in the slightest - in fact, broadband providers regularly announce additional restrictions on bandwidth, personal site/email hosting, file upload/download, P2P file sharing, etc.

    It just seems like for all of our technological advantages, the US should have the highest rate of households w/ broadband, at the lowest prices, in comparison to any other nation. Instead, you have telephony companies in India providing their customers with affordable broadband, and nations like South Korea with the highest levels per capita of broadband usage.
    • and still Northpoint DSL went out of business and Covad is sucking wind hardcore. Doesn't seem like to me they are gouging prices...Smaller close-knit countries with uniform telecom systems have a much better chance of providing broadband to more people. In the US it's too spread out, the type of DSL and cable broadband systems vary from region to region. I have had 7 different locations dsl lines in the last 5 years and have required 6 different hardware devices because they were almost all unique systems.
    • The problem with the US is that we are, ironically, technophobic and very profit oriented.

      We are slow to adopt new technologies. We see this in the cell phone industry, where other countries have a 2 year lead on cell phone technology compared with the US.

      (This must be marvelous for the cell phone manufactures since they continue to reap profits on technology that is, according to the rest of the world, obsolete.)

      The other problem is nobody wants to do anything unless they are going to be assured a prof
    • $16.50 for 128kbps is VERY expensive when considered with broadband prices. US based broadband prices are significantly cheaper than this. To get 1.5 at the same scale would be $196. So your accusation of price fixing U.S. broadband doesn't hold water. Dialup is still pretty close since there is a transfer cap.

      The government (especially in Illinois) really screwed SBC over. They LOSE money on every line that a third-party provider installs. SBC has to give it to them below their cost. That is why you don'

    • The problem with the price fixes in the US has all to do with monopolies. I know this first hand.

      If I could pay 100 bucks a month for a PRI/T1, then I would charge my normal ratio of customers per line with the lower cost involved.

      Unfortunately, like most of the US, my ISP runs where there is only 1 telco. That 1 telco, does not like to drop its prices at all. Whether or not their cost goes down.

    • This seems a bit simplistic.

      Let's go over this step by step:

      1) There is such a thing as a stable price in the market, that is, a price fixed by the market itself.
      Just because prices don't drop any more as the market expands does not mean the price is being "fixed" by the providers. MAYBE dropping the price is not cost-effective any more, MAYBE it wouldn't win enough new clients to offset the lost revenue, and they wouldn't lose clients by keeping the current price.
      Companies are not obligated to re

  • $16.50!! (Score:2, Funny)

    by mike_scheck ( 512662 )
    Thats insane! Do you know how many Java developers $16.50 would buy? I bet your IT management does....
  • Those from India subcontinent will know that considering the cost of living, cost of man-power (technical) and cost of running a business: this is not cheap at all. Even at this price, most middle class families with 2 kids in the school won't be able to afford this internet. Osho

  • Argh! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You mean third-world countries are getting broadband before I do?

    • Re:Argh! (Score:2, Funny)

      by saskboy ( 600063 )
      "You mean third-world countries are getting broadband before I do?"

      Yes, even Canada has had broadband for a decade now. ;-)

  • 825 rupees? (Score:4, Funny)

    by BitwizeGHC ( 145393 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @01:59PM (#5729449) Homepage
    Do you realize how many Moblins I have to kill to get 825 frickin' rupees?

    Geez...
  • After checking out the whitepaper it's plain to see that this is ISDN.

    For the telecom impaired: With ISDN you get three channels: two 64 Kbit/s voice/data pipes and a d-channel for signalling.

    This boils down to the fact that when no phone calls are taking place you get 128kbit/s. Then a call comes in and tells your isdn modem-thing via the d-channel. The modem-thing drops one of the two 64kbit/s tupes and the call is set up while data traffic continues at 64kbit/s.

    Any plain old ISDN router can play th

  • Highlights:

    128k in two channels, one of which can be used for voice. Must be 3.5km from the CO.
    2M in 64k channels, each of which can be dropped out for a telephone. Max length: 2km from the CO.

    There is lifeline capability, but only through an external product.

    Data connection: Ethernet. Not Fast Ethernet, just plain old Ethernet. Or two E1s. My guess is that the real throughput of the box is along the lines of 6-8 Mbps.
    Voice connection: 2 E1s or 240 copper pair.

    All in all, it looks like it's a simple

  • This is not too bad (Score:3, Informative)

    by abhikhurana ( 325468 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @02:10PM (#5729562)
    First, I am an Indian. Now to the ground reality in India. When I used to have a dialup connection, I used to pay Rs 24 per hour for phone charges and Rs 10 for internet. If I stay online for 2 hours in a day, that would mean I spend about 70 rupees a day. For 30 days, that would make it 2100 rupees or something like 45 USD per month for a crappy dialup. Compare this with this solition. I pay $16.50 and thats it. So IMHO, its not bad atall. But yes, Bengal, whose capital is Kolkatta, is maybe the only INdian state still ruled by commies, so don't expect the phone company to let lose its orn grip anytime soon. And quality of serivce is something I wud rather not comment out, it sucks too much. Actually its fine when it works.. but its when it doesnt work, then finding someone who knows aboutt the system is a nightmare. Nice idea though.

  • Stop the "it's not cheap for Indians" already! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @02:18PM (#5729630) Homepage Journal
    I see a bunch of posts here saying its not cheap for Indians, yada yada. I see this in every story about India. Stop it and think rationally please. A PC costs about Rs 30000-40000 ($600-800). Now would someone who can afford a PC find it too much to pay Rs 850 per month for a 24 hour connection? No! Especially when you consider that it almost works out cheaper the phone bills for a dialup connection. The average Indian might be very poor, but so what? Those who can buy a computer are usually well off, and can afford this.

    Me, I pay only Rs. 650 for a 24 hr connection (fibre optic, last mile copper cable; and yes, I'm from India). BW sucks, 64 kbps, download cap is 300 megs a month, but it's far better than dialup and sufficient for all my needs, and it lets me run a server [cjb.net], so I'm quite happy with it.

    So this is a really good thing. I hope lots of people will use it. Quit whining.

    • Say goodbye to those 300 megs ;)
    • Im from India too and am in India(Bangalore) right now(temporarily). This offer of 128k slowband(?) came out a month or so ago.

      It took me 4 days just to get in contact with a person who knew about this system. This system is going to come to my area only after 3-4 months. Ill be gone from here by that time.

      My uncle in Calcutta has got this service and he says it sucks big time. The 128k is closer to 56k and its not reliable at all. I have 64k cable right now and I am paying 23 $ for 600mb bandwidth cap.

      B
  • This actually paying Rs850 for always on internet is very reasonable for most middle class families. My parents back in India spend about an hour a day online. In India you *pay* for local phone calls unlike the US unlimited local service... So at approx Rs 1(conservatively) per min for phone charges thats already Rs1800. This doesn't even count the ISP charges which were about Rs 250 for 100 hours the last time I was there. Some ppl contacted my parents to see if they were interested in cable Internet for

  • Pricing.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by univgeek ( 442857 ) on Monday April 14, 2003 @02:31PM (#5729747)
    A lot of people seem to think that the pricing is too high. However, the target market - the middle-class/upper-class, could easily afford this. In my house the telephone bill (mostly due to net) comes to around Rs.2,500. I would jump at this opportunity, and so would almost all of my friends.

    Now whether 128Kbps is broadband is a different argument, but it sure beats crappy 33.1Kbps, and there would be no per-minute charge!!

    Slightly OT. The IIT (Indian Inst of Tech. ) decided a few years ago, that waiting for multi-nationals to bring in new tech that was cheap enough for use in India was pointless. The MNC's were used to at least $40 revenue per phone line per month, and that is what they were expecting in India. The IIT decided that it would go for lower-cost/lower-speed solutions using the latest in tech to drive the prices down, instead of increasing the features.

    A famous anecdote that one of the Professors there likes to relate - Around the 80's , all the digital phone switches used in India were imported. Companies like Alcatel, Ericsson, etc. used to charge a hefty bundle for them. Then C-DoT (Center for Development of Telecom) stepped in and made their own digital switch for a fraction of the cost. Almost overnight, the MNC's were forced to drop their prices in order to compete. This is what Banyan Networks, and a host of other small startups, incubated at IIT, want to do in India.

  • ...from India and from the US.
    I pay about R$ 75/month for a 256/128k DSL in Brazil. That is around US$23. Cheap? Well, no, the minimum wage here is R$240 (US$75).
  • beats the record. here is Saint Petersburg, Russia, it costs me $200 startup, and $39 a month for DSL and that's with a 300MB limit. get this: 8 cents per MB after 300.
    oh, and for shits and grins, there's no such thing as flat rate dialup, either.

    hey, anyone wanna help me start up an ISP over here??

  • ...that runs a site that can stand being Slashdotted must be good enough ;-)
  • This sounds awfully like the pseudo-standard iDSL that Ascend used to hawk...

    -psy
  • You mean Hemos actually read the white paper? What the fuck is Slashdot coming to???

  • For another data point, I'm paying $20 (CAN$30) for 1Mbit/s service (Toronto, Canada). So $16.50 for 128kbit/s sounds pretty damn expensive.

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