Inside the mind and heart of Venkatesh Sridhar

Just came across this article today on The Economic Times. I was stunned, the GoI is planning to provide free broadband access with access speeds of 2Mbps. This is on the lines of the free municipal bonds that exist in the US. So, what does this mean for the ISPs, how are they going to survive? We will have to wait and watch the reaction of ISPs to this decision.

Since BSNL and MTNL will be the ones providing this service it will surely affect their business as well. But, I think that this will come with the usual caveat of data transfer limit that will be imposed. So, MTNL and BSNL will not earn revenue from its lowest spectrum of subscribers who subscribe to those data transfer limit plans.

There has been so much noise being made about the introduction of 3G into India, right from the battle for spectrum amongst the CDMA and GSM providers and then it changed to that of a battle between Ratan Tata and others. Ratan Tata was willing to pay upto Rs. 1,500 crores for the additional spectrum required to commence 3G services. So, I decided to pen down what 3g stands for, my views on what the operators can do with it (that’s the second article)

What is 3G?

3G stands for Third Generation of Mobile communications. The services associated with 3G provide the ability to transfer simultaneously both voice data (a telephone call) and non-voice data (such as downloading information, exchanging email, and instant messaging). In marketing 3G services, video telephony has often been used as the killer application for 3G.

What does spectrum have to do with 3G services etc?

Since mobiles rely on the radio frequency for the communication, a spectrum is necessary for usage of mobiles and that is the reason why licenses where required in the first place to start a mobile service and it is the same case in India. You will now ask, why do they need additional spectrum when they already have spectrum to provide services since our mobile operators are providing services. This is primarily because majority of networks in India is either 2G or 2.5G. 2.5G is a stepping stone between 2G and 3G cellular wireless technologies. The term “second and a half generation” is used to describe 2G-systems that have implemented a packet switched domain in addition to the circuit switched domain. It does not necessarily provide faster services because bundling of timeslots is used for circuit switched data services (HSCSD) as well.

While the terms “2G” and “3G” are officially defined, “2.5G” is not. It was invented for marketing purposes only.

Hi guys,
I hope you did go through my report on the Broadband industry in India. I had suggested that broadband companies in India introduce unlimited plans and voila BSNL seems to pay have paid heed to my advice and have now offered an unlimited connection at 256 kbps for Rs. 900 per month or Rs. 9000 p.a. You can read more about the new plan here.

I think MTNL will follow BSNL’s footsteps and will introduce an unlimited plan of its own too. This is great news for all broadband users in India. Only thing being that the costs should be further brought down which I believe will as soon as competition wakes up and realised that these two incumbent telecom operators will run away with the entire broadband market if they do not change their offerings and the quality of their offerings.

The broadband sector is getting hotter and I hope that we as consumers of broadband enjoy a better, faster and affordable to us. Let us see what happens and I am sure that the other operators are going to do the same as broadband is the axis around which the Triple Play strategy will work.

So, here is wishing that many of us get great offers as customers in broadband.

Venky

Hi all,
I recently compiled a report as part of my course at S P Jain and I decided to upload it here for all of you to see. Please do go through it and post your comments here…

My project has been uploaded here Edit: I have lost the report both online and offline hence the link is dead. Sorry.

The project was initially in the .doc format and I converted it using PdfOnline.com

Venky