We Are Like This Only!

The government's effort at image building always seems to backfire. See the emblem with the lions and "Satyameva Jayate" slogan that has almost completely lost its relevance. Or Mahatma Gandhi's face on high denomination notes. Ironically enough, the high denomination notes are more popular with people who never follow the Mahatma's advice!

The government's efforts at image building may backfire at every new attempt. But one of the TV channels has succeeded in effectively capturing the spirit of India or Bharat as our politicians would prefer to call it - "We are like this only!" 

Likewise, in the technology sector, people talk of increasing bandwidth and the Internet revolution being just around the corner. But when you are online - you always feel that nothing is being done about it. Or, whatever is being done, is not at all enough. Sometimes one feels that it is foolish to expect that the bandwidth will really improve one day! The only way to be happy about the bandwidth is to accept that "We are like this only!"

Struggle with speed

The other day I had a discussion with some friends that the Internet connection speed would improve so much that people could access sites through FTP as if they were on the hard disk! When I saw the newspapers the next day- there it was, my dream come true. A new ISP with great bandwidth promise. The largest bandwidth in India and a super-fast connection speed. Register online - the ad said. 

So the first thing I did after switching on my computer was register with the new ISP. Looking forward to a great surfing experience, I struggled with the new connection for two days, and to my surprise, found that good old VSNL and RoltaNet were still better than the new ISP's super fast connection. Then I told myself, "We are like this only!" and quietly deleted the new dial-up connection from my desktop. 

The ISPs periodically keep making promises of heaven on earth, and then deliver just a fraction of what they promised. To give them the benefit of doubt, we can say that they do increase the bandwidth but get so many new subscribers in no time that they are back into the bottleneck again.

Commissioning of private gateways

Now, it seems the Government is quite serious about improving the infrastructure. It has issued licenses to private ISPs to commission their own private gateways to improve bandwidth. They will not need to depend on VSNL for the bandwidth. 

Millions of dollars will be invested in setting up these gateways. These will be of two types. One with a satellite earth station and dish antennae and the other with an undersea cable link. 

One such undersea cable link gateway would have been fully functional by now, but for a dispute over who should resell the bandwidth in India. Only about 155 MBPS (figure based on newspaper reports) is being currently utilized, though the capacity is much greater. Until the dispute is settled, be happy with what you have and say - "We are like this only!"

Server service 

Bandwidth is not the only problem with local ISPs. There are other problems with the services also. A few weeks ago, some of my sites suddenly became invisible for a few days. When I called the hosting company's local reseller here with a complaint, he said it was a VSNL problem. 

"How can it be a VSNL problem when your servers are in the US?" - I asked him. "Try to trace-route the sites from a US server and you will find out" he replied. 

When I tried to trace-route the invisible sites from US and Australian servers, they were able to trace the sites! The sites were visible from all over the world but invisible to Indian visitors. So, that's the VSNL problem, my web hosting company's reseller told me. It is unable to resolve some sites' IP addresses. Sounds strange, but it did happen.

Security breaches

Another strange facet about the ISP business was brought to my notice by one of the readers of DQ Channels India. And this pertains to security from hackers. 

There are quite a few IP addresses on the network, which are accessible to general public. These addresses have links to pages for web-based administration of routers on the network. An open invitation to hackers to crack the administrator's password and get into the network! 

A domain name is not a must to be able to access a web page on the Internet. Browsing through randomly selected IP addresses can open up a treasure chest of information for hackers.

As the infrastructure grows and the subscriber base grows, the ISPs must improve their services also. If they improve the services rather than trying to kill each other through the price wars, everyone will benefit. The ISP price wars have almost become ridiculous at the current tariff levels. What is hurting everyone is the telephone bills, not the ISP charges.

Broadband digging

While we are on the subject of ISPs, just take a look outside your window. Is someone digging up the road in front of your house? It must be one of these broadband guys! There are many companies laying fiber optic cables for the broadband networks and the road digging will go on for quite some time. 

But at the same time, once the entire digging and re-digging is completed, there is hope for faster net access; up to about four times faster compared to the conventional dial-up access. The total amount of money being invested is estimated to be around US$ 4 billion. 

It remains to be seen really how much will be invested and how fast. Conservative estimates from some sources put this figure at only US$ 870 million. Whatever investment is done in the coming months will be good for the broadband infrastructure, as it is almost non existent at the moment. 

In a classic case of counting the chickens before the eggs have hatched, content providers are ready with broadband content. But until and unless the broadband moguls cast their fiber optic cables, they dreams of raking in the moolah will remain just that … dreams!

Ashok Dongre is an advertising and marketing professional, specializing in web site design. You can contact him via e-mail at

dongre@usa.net