Re: Airtel wants to pierce net neutrality, charges more for VoIP

I'm afraid that assessment may need a relook. Exactly what is the state entity protecting any more? Does it still have a commanding presence in terms of either numbers or spread of customers? I'm not even counting the holes in the cheese, because that failure reflects on everyone (and can hardly be evaluated in isolation, given the vast valuations accruing to the private players riding on the low-hanging fruit). 

It may be employment, which is the other unpleasant reality that cannot be ignored, even if productivity in terms of 'numbers of customers provided a service per employee' does not compare well with that of other participants.
In fact, while dealing with all these realities, it is the customer who is suffering now, but it is no longer the ability to get a connection, it is the increasing need (from both users and national economy) for increasing numbers of customers to be given competitive access to real-time channels of information and action. 

How much of the USA has been able to upgrade its infrastructure to provide this higher speed last mile connectivity? Whatever the fraction, it must have come with a lot of pain, especially if (or where) the divide is on the increase, with no solution at hand. And that is the pain we will have to watch and experience in India, with less, perhaps, cushion to bear the shock, if we trust to chance and the good sense of business houses in the telecom trade to do it, never mind do it better.
Let's see. 
 Vickramhttp://communicall.wordpress.comhttp://vvcrishna.wordpress.com 

     On Saturday, 10 January 2015, 16:47, ken <[email protected]> wrote:
   
 

  At the risk of sounding like I am advocating the use of free market forces, I believe that one of the issues India faces is the inability for "any entity" to enter  the connectivity arena. As such, enacting a common carriage on demand regulation would allow for more options, whether they be wireless or wireline in any of their permeations.
 
 In other words, if every available backbone location was required to allow anyone to connect and take away connectivity, in the more lucrative areas customers would have a range of choices for their providers.
 
 Instead of charging by the bit or individual service, the "Bill and Keep" formula seems to work reasonably well. This form of payment is based on "unlimited" service with such applications as voice and text to be free within that service.
 
 Previously, I pointed out that enabling for profit competition becomes dangerous if left to its own governance as the end result is pockets with cheap and fast connectivity surrounded by swath of land almost no one wants to connect. As an aside, this is referred to as the "Swiss Cheese Effect" and can decimate one neighborhood while empowering the next. 
 
 In the US, we collect a nominal fee from each broadband user to be used for extending/subsidizing coverage in these voids. I believe this to be a very useful way to deploy broadband.
 
 One more point, since I exited the wireless industry, almost a decade ago, the cost for equipment has dropped almost one order of magnitude while throughput has increased by at least that much. Creating a wireless backbone which allows for gigabit transfer is now almost trivial with the cost for last mile connectivity in speeds ranging from 20Mbps to 100Mbps dropping to almost inconsequential. 
 
 Of course, all of the above required the Indian government to care more about connecting your country than the profits of an outdated service which is already bankrupt but hasn't admitted that fact as of yet. Sadly, all of the challenges are trivial with the exception of the regulatory hurdle and until that mountain is moved, most everything else will stay in stasis.
 
 
 Respectfully,
 
 Ken DiPietro
 Cumberland MD USA
 
 On 01/10/2015 04:23 AM, Tarun Dua wrote:
  
    "For the Internet, I believe the rates should be zero, because monitoring, billing, handling complaints, sending goons to collect, etc etc cost more than they bring in."
 
  +1 to that. The subscriber management systems are energy in-efficient and the counting of bits costs way more than the bits themselves ironically. A cursory viewing of BSNL's tenders and pricing received per port for 3G/2G subscriber management costs should make that clear to everyone.
 
  The cost of moving bits can't be zero or near zero but can definitely be finite. In a recent response to TRAI's paper on broadband, Airtel's provided the cost of fiber and copper pass-through per house and it was hardly any different. Fiber can happily do 100 Mbit last miles at no massive cost difference.
  
  Regards
  -Tarun
  
  
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