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The Internet IT

Indian Consortium To Offer 2 Mbps At $2.30/month 319

Posted by timothy from the rupdee-do dept.
leoaugust writes "The State Govt of Andhra Pradesh in India, has awarded a contract for a fiber-optics based network to a consortium led by Aksh of India that aims to charge just Rs 100 (around US $2.30) a month for a domestic broadband connection. The project will provide services with a minimum bandwidth of 2Mbps. The execution of the project is scheduled to begin in April 2005 and will be completed by December 2006. The strength of the consortium is evident by the participation of top-notch Indian corporations which include Railtel Corporation India Limited, Tata Indicom, VSNL Limited, INcable Network (Andhra) Limited, Spectranet Limited and Nuziveedu Seeds Limited."
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Indian Consortium To Offer 2 Mbps At $2.30/month More

Indian Consortium To Offer 2 Mbps At $2.30/month

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  • I know where I'm moving! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dizzle ( 781717 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:15AM (#11252243) Journal
    Manitoba. You didn't think I was going to say India by any chance, did you?

  • Sweet! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:15AM (#11252245)
    Now i can post my webcam videos of students giving oral sex at blazing speeds!

  • Should be noted... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:16AM (#11252248)
    That in India, money will buy you a lot more than the US. In India, 100 USD is a lot of money and could be a month's pay for an architect (my cousin thought about going there). Just like in downtown New York $5 won't buy you hardly anything to eat, in most parts of India small sums of money are plenty to live on.

    Based on the local economic conditions in India, $2.30 is probably totally reasonable.

    • ... to me, it's the infrastructure of this project that's more notable than the price they plan to charge. I really wish we had more of this kind of stuff going on in the states. Other places like Japan have been doing "bigger, better" broadband for a while now, and the excuse over here was that Japan was such a small area, so it was easier to implement. But now, look at India.

    • Re:Should be noted... (Score:5, Informative)

      by mallumax ( 712655 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:31AM (#11252295) Homepage
      I'm from india.100 Rs is definitely very cheap. To put it in perspective
      --In Metros a movie ticket costs 70-200 Rs.(depends on the metro).
      --Landline rentals start at around 350 Rs.
      --Internet call rates (not the ISP charge) if you use the BSNL telephone network is more than 20 Rs an hour and around 7 Rs after 10.30pm till 8 am.ISP charges are extra.

      So at 100 Rs/month this is a steal !!

      • Re:Should be noted... (Score:2, Informative)

        by sgarg ( 197658 )
        BSNL has recently increased pulse rate for internet calls to 10 minutes (peak hour) and 15 minutes (non-peak). This works out to Rs. 8 and Rs. 5.30 per hour, including taxes. This is pretty cheap! I pay Rs. 500/= pm for 300 MB of download on a 64 kbps link in bangalore. So, this would be a great thing. If only we have it in Bangalore :(

    • Re:Should be noted... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually it is cheap even by indian standards,

      Compare with other services e.g
      local calls - 2Rs(4 cents)
      cable monthly charges - 200Rs($5)
      decent broadband monthly now - 500 ($11)

      the Rs 100/month for broadband is really cheap.

    • Re:Should be noted... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by asliarun ( 636603 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @06:17AM (#11252416)
      I agree with your point. One thing though. $100 = Rs. 4500 isn't that big a deal in India :-)

      Perhaps an architect could get by with $100 a month IF he/she lives alone or with their parents, has no loans, cooks at home, and takes the bus everyday. $100 is also roughly what a student (from a no-name college with no campus placements) would expect to get paid with 0 experience.

      A typical middle-class Indian would earn about $200-$300 a month, live in a 2BHK rental/govt flat (Bedroom, "Hall" aka living room, Kitchen), own a scooter or a 100cc motorbike (100cc bikes give insane mileage - 1 liter = 100km!), and have a 4-5 member family (husband, wife, 2 kids, grandma).

      I agree. $2.30 pm is quite reasonable. However, PC prices in India are exorbitant. Forget purchasing power parity. The same PC that costs $500 in the US would cost about $800 in India! This is the reason why the PC penetration in India is so low. To add to it, most Indians tend to buy stuff with cash after they've saved for it. Hence, they usually plan to save for about 2-4 years if they want to buy a PC for their kid.
    • Hey hey hey. You can get a slice of pizza in New York for way less than $5. Probably TWO for the whole fiver.

    • I'm from India... (Score:3, Informative)

      by carlmenezes ( 204187 )
      ...and $100 is DEFINITELY NOT 1 month's pay for an architect. Why, fresh B.E.s start off at a minimum of around $400 a month. Architects make a lot more. The average salary here is above $1000 a month for a moderately experienced professional. So I'll take it you meant 1000 and not 100.

      Just to give you an idea of the living expenses, if you eat out every day, food can cost you between Rs. 100-300 a day in a good restaurant in the famous city of Bangalore - I'm not talking fastfood :) Apartment rentals star
    • I think you're all getting excited over nothing..

      a)VSNL is already providing 512kbps lines right now at Rs.260/month.
      b)This service will not be out until early 2007
      c)There is no mention of unlimited data xfers or anything of the sort. Therefore, just like the above mentioned VSNL connection which offers something like a 100MB download cap per month, these guys will start charging people who go over the limit. If they are aiming for 2007, I don't see why-t-f they don't think bigger than 2MBPS

      Anyways, as to

  • Not so many comments here.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Metteyya ( 790458 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:16AM (#11252252)
    As I see, most Slashdotters - instead of commenting - decided to RTFA and check possibilites of emigrating to and working in India.

    OK, guys, if you've already checked it - how much does a plane ticket from Europe to India cost? And are there good employment perspectives?

    • Re:Not so many comments here.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Professeur Shadoko ( 230027 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:21AM (#11252267)
      And are there good employment perspectives?
      It depends, are you ready to be paid like Indian workers ?
      • What would probably be a better idea is to save up a bit of cash then go live the good life in India for a while.

      • Re:Not so many comments here.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rcs1000 ( 462363 ) * <.moc.liamg. .ta. .0001scr.> on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @06:06AM (#11252384)
        Well you've raised the interesting question: how much is the cheapness of Indian programmers the result of an overly weak Rupee (read strong US dollar), and how much the fact that Indian programmers are just cheaper.

        If a programmer in India, earning $5,000 a year, can afford 2MB broadband, a nice appartment, food, etc. (i.e. as much as a programmer in the US), then who is to say that Indian programmers are underpaid. Perhaps the issue is solely one of the US dollar being too strong. As work moves offshore, the effect of this will be (in the long run) that money flows to India, the rupee rises, and US programmers become more competitive again.

        Just a thought...

        Cheers,

        Robert
        • Actually you're right. If you earn $5000 (considering, you're living alone) in India, you can have a ball. You can drive a hatchback (cars are expensive here, but then, the roads and the traffic is pretty bad anyway), live in a very nice part of the city, afford to party your ass every weekend, and take a quarterly vacation to Goa or to the Himalayas. Money talks here. If you've got the money here, everything works like a charm, and even the cops don't bother you (jump a red light, pay $1-2 bribe).

          The lif
          • Vacations? Cars? Parties?

            You must be new here. All we care about is broadband; the cheaper the better.

        • (read strong US dollar), and how much the fact that Indian programmers are just cheaper.

          Where do you get the idea that the US dollar is strong gout of this??? Lets say that a roll of Kodak film cost $3.50US in the USA that same roll of film in India cost $0.35US in India. The roll of film hasn't changed it is still the same roll of film. The only thing is that it cost you MORE in the US because the US dollar is WEAK!!!! it ain't worth as much as other people's money. The roll of film hasn't change

          • Currency "strength" is a relative term. The US dollar compared to itself in 1972 may be weaker, but the US dollar compared to the Indian Rupee is strong. It has been "weakening" against the Rupee lately, but it is still "stronger."

            Just because the Dollar has been weaking doesn't mean it's "weak" people!
          • In 1972 I made 3.10 and hour here in the US. I had a nice house a car took trips and could afford to go our on the town every now and then. Now I make $20.00 per hour and I can't hardly afford to live. My life style hasn't changed except for the fact that a dollar will not buy what it would in 1972. Personally I would rather work for the $3.10 and be able to buy a loaf of bread for $0.35 and a gallon of gas for $0.50

            Now that's some odd math.

            You'd be happy making 1/7 as much if you could purchase goods an
      • From my understanding, you cannot get a job
        in India without a work permit/work visa.
        You must already have the job lined up in
        order to get that work visa.

        You might want to visit there as a tourist
        first to scope out the local conditions
        before packing up and moving there.

        Personally, there is nothing that could
        compell me to relocate to India, even
        2Mb broadband for Rs100. Besides, if you
        really don't mind getting paid like an
        Indian worker, just stick around the good
        old USA for another decade, 'cause that's
        wher
    • Right, slashdotters see the low price on bandwidth, decide to go to India. Nevermind that they will hate many aspects of the local culture. Or that they will at best find a job for a monthly pay of a hundred bucks. Luckily, India is another former colony of the British Empire, so there won't be any language barriers.

      There are also tons of pretty girls, but then again, the culture will fuck up the regular slashdotter's plans. Then again, slashdotters mostly don't get laid, so it may not be counted as a minu
    • Why is every corporation listed including "Limited" in its name? They're described as important companies, but if they are all truly "limited", why are they so? There are LLC (limited liability comapnies) in the U.S., but they tend to be smaller, and once you get bigger, you usually incorporate. So, what's the difference in India?

  • sweet! (Score:3, Funny)

    by wcitechnologies ( 836709 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:16AM (#11252254)
    Sweet, that means dial-up should only cost about 20 cents per month! where do I sign?

  • Opportunity (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Roll with the outsourcing trend! Simply put two servers into each home in the region, and share the bandwidth.

    Let the indian family use one, and sell the other as ultra-cheap hosting :-)

  • better places for broadband (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Such as japan , where you get ludicrous speeds for low cash. or Norway where its dirt cheat for fat pipes :)

    • Re:better places for broadband (Score:5, Informative)

      by putaro ( 235078 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:38AM (#11252309) Journal
      Strangely, AC is right. We're paying about $30/mo for 24Mbps here in Tokyo. In $/Mbps this is pretty close to Indian prices.
  • Lay a big fiber optic cable, resell the bandwidth from india to somewhere else, profit!

    Yes I know... Its a pretty bad joke
  • Good initiative but unless the operating system, office programs , games are translated into their local language it will not benefit much. In India still the internet and outsourcing are the possesion of a prized few who know english. There are many more analtycal minds tied up just for the lack of english knowledge. If only could the Indian government unshackle the internet and make it truly multilingual then it is true freedom for indians.
    • That there are basically four primary dialects of the English language:

      British
      American
      Australian
      Indian

      I don't think they're going to have as much problems as you'd think. That, combined with the fact that a good portion of the actually usable functionality is available as Open Source code and has already been internationalized or is in the process thereof for India... Well, let's just day your argument kind of falls flat on it's face- hard.

  • I wish my government would take notice (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:33AM (#11252300)
    I am from the neighbouring state karnataka (yes in Bangalore and yeah it is definitely true that I am taking american jobs, we don't have anything to eat so we don't need broadband and yeah I catch an elephant to work every morning).
    I definitely wish our chief minister takes notice, but I don't have much hope because of the deputy chief minister (who is like Sauron behind Saruman).
    Congrats to the telugu (APs language) guys, we have been beating them in everything (including letting them think that we actually wanted M$ to establish a center in bangalore...yeah like anyone would *want* that *evil grin*). But on a serious note it is a good thing, I hope they can really use this to reduce corruption in the state department.

    Anyway some random rant, why we need IT and internet in the government is to actually alleviate poverty. How that would happen (as I see it) would be that by automating mundance tasks like getting sites and homes approved, land for agriculture, eastablishing industries etc., it would take the power away from the government employees and reduce corruption (or atleast push corruption to higher echelons of power like in the US). This would mean that the politicians need to actually approve projects from companies to get money which would mean more power to us.

    Most moderators won't read till here so people
    observe I will be modded flamebait.
    • Which elephant route do you take? Mine is 3A.
    • Internet options:
      Dialup:
      26.4k on a good day, $15/mo for the ISP, $20 for the line.
      ISDN:
      128kpbs, something like $50/mo line+$50/mo ISP+per minute charges+hardware and setup.
      IDSL:
      144/144, DSL over ISDN, $100/mo+$300 setup
      Satalite:
      $70/mo+$300 setup or $100/mo. Anal terms of use, anything over 165MB slows back down to dialup speeds, that takes Windows Update out of the broadband arena.
      Next step:
      T1.

      Cable? Nope. Noone delivers to my area, and those that deliver near don't offer internet.

      ADSL? Our phone system i

  • Have to ask... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spamfiltertest ( 820587 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:35AM (#11252303) Journal
    From the post...

    "The network will have optic fibre connectivity right up to the village level."

    From my understanding, India is a country of Very rich and Very poor. The middle class, if you would, is a newer concept (thanks to the tech boom).

    So, if these villages lean to the poor side (assuming if you had $ you would live in a city) would you even have a computer? If not, what good is broadband?

    • Re:Have to ask... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by northcat ( 827059 )
      The middle class, if you would, is a newer concept (thanks to the tech boom).

      No, Middle Class is not a new concept here, in India. No, its not due to "the tech boom". And, No, all Indians definitely don't work for offshoring companies. Its a complete country with all kinds of jobs and economic classes and it has been like this for decades.

    • From my understanding, India is a country of Very rich and Very poor. The middle class, if you would, is a newer concept (thanks to the tech boom).

      There has been a big middle class in India. It is not like in the US, but still quite big. In a country of 1 billion+ residents, even if 10% form the middle class that is around 100 million people. And in India there are a lot more than 100 million in the middle class

      So, if these villages lean to the poor side (assuming if you had $ you would live in a c

  • Broadband and North America : A sad story (Score:5, Informative)

    by __aailob1448 ( 541069 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:50AM (#11252338) Journal
    This friend of mine who lives in France was shocked when I told him that I pay $45 for 3Mbps/384 Kbps dsl. Over there, there are 2 Isps offering 8, 15 and 20 Mbps dsl for between 15 and 30 euros (all taxes included).

    Two years ago, the best you could get over there was 512 Kbps and they were starting to roll 1Mbps connections in select regions.

    Part of the reason why I came to the U.S in the first place were superior broadband speeds. I feel betrayed now.

    • This is true about the French offering, but 8Mbits/s and above is not available everywhere, only close enough to the exchange.

      I'm only 30 minutes from downtown Paris and the best I can have is 2MBits/s, and the prices don't come down accordingly, it's still 30 Euros a months. In other words extra bandwidth comes for free if you are lucky or willing to pay much more for rent.

      Finally getting ADSL enabled on your line takes forever, up to 6 weeks, because it still has to be done by the old ex-state owned Fr
      • Finally getting ADSL enabled on your line takes forever, up to 6 weeks, because it still has to be done by the old ex-state owned France Telecom, who leases the lines to the ISPs, and they have a huge backlog of people trying to get broadband.

        I was expecting this, but when I set up my ADSL line in Paris I walked into the France Telecom shop two doors down and walked out with a modem - the service was switched on the next afternoon...

    • Trust me when I say that the US has it good on EVERYTHING, including broadband.

      Try the UK... entry level broadband (256k down and 64k up) is about £20/month - thats nearly $40.

      I'm on 1.5mbit down and 256k up and thats costing me nearer $80/month.

      Makes your prices seem a bit more reasonable now, eh?

      • Bah! Luxury, luxury!

        Here in Australia we're paying $80/month for 256/64 unlimited ADSL. We're lucky though, because just about every ISP has dropped their true unlimited (volume) plans but we've been able to stay on the plan we signed up for. I've been keeping close tabs on our usage and we should be able to go to a 512/128 ADSL plan that's limited to 20G per month plus 20G "offpeak" (midnight to 7am). And it'll be slightly cheaper.

      • Strange. I'm on 512k down, 256k up for £12/month, I could upgrade to 1Mb down for £14/month, or 2Mb down for £20/month, but can't be bothered upgrading my old hardware. You need to look at changing providers. For £40 you should be getting 8Mb down.
        • To be fair mine is uncapped and pretty much no nonsense - NTL! I think they have a not very hard enforced limit of 1GB a day.. but its pretty rare I ever exceed than and as an average there is no way I am touching on 31GB a month.

          I've had it for about 3 years and gradually bumped my speed up from base level to their top tier now. Its been supremely reliable!
      • You need to change your provider. I've got 4Mb from Bulldog fo UKP20-00/mth (Eur 30-00), my brother is on HomeChoice at 2MB plus 40channels of TV for about UKP15-00/mth (Eur 22-00)

    • In Spain we pay 45 EUR (about $60) for 512/128Kbps ADSL, altough the average income is considerably lower than in France. Not only do I find France's case shocking, but also yours. I haven't checked the exact numbers, but definitely the average income in the US is higher than in Spain, so in fact you are paying a smaller proportion of your money for 6 times our bandwidth.

      Something is going wrong here :(

    • Here in Hungary we pay about $45 for 512/128 kbit per month due to the telco monopoly called MATAV.
  • Wow! if this is implemented, this is simply wow!! Though promise of a really Fast pipe and ultra-blazig speeds are still not fulfilled, i can vouch for the temendous improvements in net connection speed/options that has happened in India,especially bangalore.
    I remember the times when I had to connect to my web server (verio) using modem/phone Lines, data actually used to come in trickles and any "work" was done during night only. The only good side effect was that you developed buddha-like patience.
    Now pe
  • I've seen similar offers even in Germany, but you usually only get the first 500 MBs included, after that they nickel and dime you. Since the article didn't mention it, does anybody know whether this includes flatrate service or not?

    Additionally, there might be an internal speed of 2Mbps, but isn't it the peering agreements that make or break the speed to the rest of the internet? Without disclosing them, it's easy to provide such fast lines little...

  • The U.S. equivalent of this project... (Score:4, Informative)

    by uvsc_wolverine ( 692513 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @05:58AM (#11252367)
    Just like this project is being done in only one state in India, I know of at least one state in the U.S. that is doing this. Utah. There is a fiber optic network known as UTOPIA [utopianet.org] that is being rolled out state wide...except where I live. I live in Provo, and the city planners decided to do it their own way. [iprovo.net] I will grant, however, that Provo's network is being rolled out a lot faster than UTOPIA is being done. There's already a significant portion of the city with access to iProvo (it's on the richer part of town, of course). But, I don't live in that area. I'm a student barely managing to survive on Top Ramen, and really crappy broadband.

    [RANT]The stupid ISP that handles the Internet access for my apartment complex doesn't know how to set up their network! They put idiotic bandwidth limits on users - you get 64 kbps for free, any faster and you have to pay more - and the lousy network they set up can't even handle a fifty percent load. I paid extra for 256K, and I only get that in the morning when everyone else is at school, or late at night when everyone else is asleep. Oh, and you're only allowed to use your internet connection for 5 hours a day. Any more than that and they charge you a dollar an hour. Not to mention how poor the installation was.[/RANT] O.K., now I feel better. Next semester I'm moving into a house and getting cable for my broadband.

  • Effect on P2P (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gurezaemon ( 663755 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @06:04AM (#11252382)
    Does this mean that we are going to see even more Bollywood movies on file sharing networks?

  • Politics... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @06:19AM (#11252425)
    This looks like some sort of political move to reassure investors that the government is not going to be hostile to tech industries.

    Andhra Pradesh had a very progressive chief minister for the last two terms (Chandrababu Naidu). Many of his policies were technology centred, and he made massive improvements in the infrastructure. But it seemed to many that his improvements were only for the major cities, and the farmers in the villages were left out. This was partially true, but largely false.

    The most recent elections proved to be a monstrous defeat for his party and YS Rajasekhara Reddy was put in. YSR is seen to be a "farmer's CM", so to speak. His main issue was that the state ministry will focus more on the issues at the villages, and not solely on technology development.

    Recently, this has scared away a lot of big business from investing in AP. But AP is severly cash starved, thanks to tons of money grubbing politicos (just like any place else in teh world). Maybe you see the dilemma now. The government needs the money from them, but it cannot look like it is supporting them.

    If you ask me, this is just a political move to play both sides of the game. I do not believe it straight out. I have heard things like this being proposed for so many years now that it's made me quite cynical. The project will probably become another place to divert funds from.

    And yes, I was from AP. I've lived in both the cities and the villages. Now I live in bangalore.

  • Limit? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by northcat ( 827059 )
    Most of the broadband services here (India) put unrelistically small download limits on their connections. However 'unlimited' download connections are popping up and with a speed of 2mbps there won't be, hopefully, any download limit.

    All I can say now is: Damn. I live in Bangalore which is supposed to be the Silicon Valley of India (but its not in Andhra Pradesh). Here the cheapest connection people can get is s 128kbps unlimited connection for Rs. 1,000 (about 20 USD) pm. (There are cheaper ISPs but the

  • One day in Egypt.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by marafa ( 745042 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @06:45AM (#11252496) Homepage Journal
    256k dsl was set at 150LE or 12.5usd at the current black market rate of 6le/usd.
    this does not include the modem @ 430le (modem + 4 port switch + splitter)
    but it does include monthly adsl suscription cost to the telco

    currently, the ministry of interior has a deal for its officers for 80le/month and the army has one too for 75le/month.

    --
    go ahead its time to mod me a troll
  • Well, blow me down. Here in Poland, our monopolistic telco takes around 10% of the average income for a 512/128kbps line, and have outages of more than a month. You need to pay the bill for the time the line was down, of course -- unless you're willing to face a 5-10 years long legal battle for your money. Lost profits? Who cares.

    Thus, if India is a 3rd-world country, the US are 4th-world, Zambia 100th and Poland approximately 89th.

  • In other news.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@keirstead . o rg> on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @07:13AM (#11252566)
    In other news, it was discovered today that people in India generally make far less than the average American/European and have a lower standard of living.

    It was also discovered that Slashdot editors know nothing about economics and that you can't just convert things to US dollars and declare "it's cheaper!".

    News at 11.
    • According to CIA [cia.gov] the GDP per capita in India is 2900$ whereas it is 37800$ in USA

      The $2.30 is the same as 29.98$

      Is that cheap?
      • Considering I get 3 MBps in Canada for $34.95 CDN, and judging form the US commercials I have seen, I would say it is about average.

  • ...they're going to outsource the work to China.

  • Lemon curry? (Score:3, Funny)

    by struct24 ( 844801 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @07:50AM (#11252668)
    Ironically, technical support for the Indian broadband customers will be provided entirely by low-paid Americans.
  • in sri lanka the government telco (Sri Lanka Telecom) is giving 2mbps/512kbps at USD80 per month. it is not widespread (i have it in my office but not at home) and is only given with new phone connections ..

    the fact of the matter is that the connection gives that speed only to the distribution point. iirc SLT only has an 80mbps uplink to the SEAMEWE cable, which means that EVERY user is competing for extremely limited bandwidth

    i would love to run an ISP, use a decent 802.11g wireless net and a phat pipe t
  • Just a thought - if a developing country/state can afford to go that cheap, why here in US we have this rampant prices ?? Someone(Corporate world) out here is making big money. Isn't it time companies act in the interest of consumer rather than their own ??
    • " ... Just a thought - if a developing country/state can afford to go that cheap, why here in US we have this rampant prices ?? Someone(Corporate world) out here is making big money. Isn't it time companies act in the interest of consumer rather than their own ? ..."

      The local costs are lower in India. Now, that's not to say there's no possibility of state subsidy; India does a great deal of it now, and have since independence. And I'm sure we could agree that some companies are making big money.

      However, a
  • The simple secret is that they value education and intellectual endeavors while US culture belittles it. So their kids will strive for higher education. These two countries start from incredible handicaps of poverty and bad political systems, despite some glorious periods of history. However they are improving, will catch up and exceed the lazy and bloated USA.
  • I'll gladly assume most of those future broadband connections will have users behind it willing to use it for all kinds of legal uses and enjoy broadvand access but names like "VSNL" ring a bell with me for not having a working abuse-department and being a big source of spam.

    Just type VSNL into google groups and you'll see a strong relationship with newsgroups with abuse in their name [google.com] (in the old google groups interface, you got this nice hint that 'news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting' was a relevant group

  • ...They were going to compete directly with broadband services here. That would have been really cool.

    Finally, I would have gotten to do a little outsourcing of my own. Give the telecom companies here a taste of their own medicine. Free market and all that.

    (Then the drugs wore off...)

  • Executive yacht payments are much lower in India than here.
  • Try to get from India to anywhere around the US and see what your latencies are? FLAG is starting to show its age, I think, or at least whatever they're using of it seems to be overburdoned.

    I've worked with remote offices in India, even with a 3Mbit link on their end, getting decent latency between us, or them and anywhere in this hemisphere was a challenge.

  • Guess Where Alan Ralsky's Next Host Will Be? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by the pickle ( 261584 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2005 @04:10PM (#11257700) Homepage
    Unless the Indian companies backing this project take a very hard-line anti-spam and anti-virus stance (anyone know what the market penetration of Windows vs. Linux/BSD/MacOS is in India?), I can see this turning into a giant clusterfuck for the rest of the Internet.

    You think the American zombie botnets are bad, wait 'till there are a couple hundred thousand Indian Windoze boxen all on 2-meg symmetric connections. This has the potential to bring an entire country to its knees if the virus authors co-ordinate properly and the Indian users are just as clueless as their American counterparts.

    Of course, if Linux/BSD/MacOS is significantly more popular there than Windows is, you can probably ignore most of this cynicism.

    p

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