India to offer free broadband within a couple years

[Ramo]

Broadband to go free in 2 yrs Add to Clippings
JOJI THOMAS PHILIP

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2007 02:00:26 AM]
NEW DELHI: The government proposes to offer all citizens of India free, high-speed broadband connectivity by 2009, through the state-owned telecom service providers BSNL and MTNL. While consumers would cheer, the move holds the potential to kill the telecom business as we know it.

You have heard of free municipal broadband — many cities in the US have drenched themselves in wireless broadband connectivity which is freely accessible to residents. The idea is to boost economic activity in general. The government of India plans to achieve free broadband connectivity at a speed of 2 MB per second across the country, with a similar goal. Senior government officials expect to be able to achieve this goal spending only a portion of the corpus of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Broadband_to_go_free_in_2_yrs/articleshow/1955351.cms

Hindu civilization

[Drake Tungsten]

I think India would be better off spending the money on improving literacy and alleviating poverty rather than giving out free broadband.

[Dinner]

Shouldn't the government of India solve the daily power shortages in summer before they start pouring money into free broadband? I mean it is hard to use that free broadband when there is no electricity to run the computer.

[Ramo]

Probably, but it's neat that they'd do that.

[Colonâ„¢]

You'd think doling out free electricity has been wreaking enough havoc on India's economy already.

[Seeker]

I'm picturing Ecthy's starving, naan-eating, jewel-playing, street-crapping peasants pulling their wasted, fly-crawling bodies through mountainous dungheaps....searching for food? Clean Water? No! The village internet terminal, the only electrically powered appliance in town, so he can get in 'one more...post...on the MBT thread...'

[Provost Harrison]

Priorities

[dannubis]

make that a few decades

[Sirotnikov]

All them cows gobbling all the bandwidth downloading cow worship pron

[aneeshm]

This is not a very good idea. The current government has got it's priorities ass-backwards. There are far more pressing issues that need to be addressed (defence, education, and most importantly, the governmental structure itself). The middle and upper classes can generally take care of themselves if you don't interfere with their lives in a negative manner. There's no need to provide them ridiculous perks like this.

And there is the fact that this will kill private providers.

As an interesting aside, the Maharashtra state government is planning to make Pune the first Indian city to be completely covered by a free-to-use wireless network. The plan is expected to be completed before my four years here get over, so hopefully I'll be able to check it out. But all things considered, I'd prefer it if they fixed the roads and power supply problem instead of spending money on this. That, or let private players free access to the power market.



But I have to admit, even when you consider all the objections against this idea (the one in the OP), this is just plain cool.

[snoopy369]

I think this is a good idea Free 'net access for all is an important element of any society's great leap forward into the information age

[aneeshm]

I just checked up on the Universal Service Obligation Fund (the one being used to fund this) and my objections have diminished considerably, because it was a fund set up precisely for this purpose - so money from other areas is not being diverted here.

Link

1.0 OVERVIEW

1.1 The Universal Service Support Policy came into effect from 1.4.2002. The guidelines for universal service support policy were issued by DoT and were placed on the DoT website www.dot.gov.in on 27th March 2002. Subsequently, the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Act, 2003 giving statutory status to the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) was passed by both Houses of Parliament in December 2003. The Fund is to be utilized exclusively for meeting the Universal Service Obligation and the balance to the credit of the Fund will not lapse at the end of the financial year. Credits to the Fund shall be through Parliamentary approvals. The Rules for administration of the Fund known as Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2004 were notified on 26.03.2004.

So the development of the monetary and governmental infrastructure to make this possible were built by the BJP.

Truly, Hindu civilisation.



The purposes of the fund:

(i) Stream-I: Provision of Public Telecom and Information Services -

(a) Operation and Maintenance of Village Public Telephone in the revenue villages identified as per Census 1991 and Installation of Village Public Telephone in the additional revenue villages as per Census 2001.

b) Provision of additional rural community phones in areas after achieving the target of one Village Public Telephone in every revenue village.

(c) Replacement of Multi Access Radio Relay Technology Village Public Telephone installed before 1st day of April 2002.

(ii) Stream-II – Provision of household telephones in rural and remote areas as may be determined by the Central Government from time to time

(iii) Stream-III: Creation of infrastructure for provision of Mobile Services in rural and remote areas:

(iv) Stream-IV: Provision of Broadband connectivity to villages in a phased manner

(v) Stream-V : Creation of general infrastructure in rural and remote areas for development of telecommunication facilities

(vi) Stream-VI: Induction of new technological developments in the telecom sector in rural and remote areas

Given that this is what the money was earmarked for anyway, and that funding is subject to Parliamentary approval, the objection of priorities does not stick.

[aneeshm]

And assume for a moment that government functions at only 50% efficiency in terms of time.

So the thing is delayed to 2011 instead of 2009. Does it make a significant difference?

[MRT144]

Originally posted by snoopy369
I think this is a good idea Free 'net access for all is an important element of any society's great leap forward into the information age

is this a clever joke or a poor grasp of what indicates being a part of the information age.

[snoopy369]

Perhaps it is a superior grasp of what indicates being a fully realized part of the information age