Massive WiMax Network for India

An anonymous reader writes "Engadget reports that the largest Indian telecom company is planning to build a mobile WiMax network covering three states on the subcontinent capable of serving 250 million people. State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is leaning on Soma Networks to build the broadband-speed network in response to government requirement that 20 million broadband lines be in service by 2010." Meanwhile I can't even get cable. Maybe it's time to move to India.

Tongue in cheek to the submitter

[Dunbal]

Maybe it's time to move to India.

      Why not. Your job already has.

Re:

[Alsn]

The first though that popped into my mind was instead the following:

Maybe it's time to start a web based company such as a store or a downloading service in india... ;)

Re:

[canuck57]

Maybe it's time to move to India.

Why not. Your job already has.

I was thinking Brazil [american.edu] myself. Nice weather and good place to retire. Probably more stable and less people per square km. Less strife and unrest.

And with how many people there are in India, WiMax will be maxed out to a point it isn't very reliable or usable, much like many support centers I have had to recently use.

Maybe it's time to move to India.

[falconwolf]

I was thinking Brazil [american.edu] myself.

I was thinking of Brazil myself. I'd like to go there for a year as part of a study abroad program.

Falcon

Re:

[SimplyFearless]

India doesn't allow foreigners to come in and work, or take jobs away from it's citizens, even if those foreigners are cheaper, better trained, better skilled, more capable and more competent in general. Ha.

Re:

[superash]

Foreigners will never get a chance because there is always some indian who will work for less.

Re:

[PaneerParantha]

That's false.

And has been shown to be so many times over here.

1. The latest example of a foreigner working in India is Mr. Gary Kirsten (http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/southafrica/content/player/45813.html), the Indian cricket coach. The two coaches before him were Australian and New Zealander respectively.

2. Australian cricketers routinely accept advertising contracts (and in one case a movie role) in India.

3. There are backpackers from Europe working in call-centers.

Your statement is not grounded

Re:

[oook_in]

India doesn't allow foreigners to come in and work

Untrue. [travisaoutsourcing.com]

Re:

[ghoul]

Thats bullshit. India actually has an open border policy. If you show an offer letter from an Indian company you and your family get resident permits. As long as you have a job you can stay as long as you want. You only have to renew the permit each year by showing current employment

Re:

[the_masked_mallard]

FYI, companies in India have started outsourcing too, to other companies in India. I know of a lot of places where work is being outsourced or contractors being hired to do low end work. Although a lot of work being done in India is low end, there are places with good work too. BTW, I am also Indian.

Re:

[Dunbal]

It was a joke, silly, not a lament. I think India has come a LONG way in the past 20 years and I really hope that it fulfills its destiny as a major economic force in the world in the near future. I personally am anti-US or perhaps more specifically anti-Bush, and snigger every time the US has another finger slip from its tenuous position as the "world leader". But, yet again we have demonstrated that it's very difficult to effectively transmit sarcasm over the internet.

Re:

[mi]

I personally am anti-US

Be sure to declare this, should you find yourself trying to get into our country. Thanks...

Re:

[Dunbal]

Be sure to declare this, should you find yourself trying to get into our country. Thanks...

Yes, because "freedom of speech" means something different in your country. No Mr. Paranoid, I won't declare it because I enjoy free travel across borders (it's one of the human rights you know) and don't want to be locked up on "terror" charges for speaking my mind. But don't worry, I won't be strapping any explosives to myself. You guys are doing a great job of destroying your own country as it

Re:Tongue in cheek to the submitter

[mi]

Yes, because "freedom of speech" means something different in your country.

Nope, "freedom of speech" means exactly the same here as it always has. You are free to proclaim your hatred, we are free to deny you entry.

I enjoy free travel across borders (it's one of the human rights you know)

No, it is not, unfortunately.

don't want to be locked up on "terror" charges for speaking my mind.

Has not happened to anyone yet — don't overestimate your importance. Even burning the flag (incredibly offensive and banned in many other countries) is still legal here...

Meanwhile I'll just keep taking your money on Wall Street.

You mean, you'll continue to participate in our markets? Great — we welcome all kind...

Re:

[Ravon Rodriguez]

Being anti-US for a US citizen is a big ol' bucket of self hate. Hate Bush. Hate Republicans. Hate the government in general. But hating the US is hating your own heritage.

Re:Tongue in cheek to the submitter

[Tablizer]

I think India has come a LONG way in the past 20 years and I really hope that it fulfills its destiny as a major economic force in the world in the near future.

Me too. We need more strong democracies.

I personally am anti-US or perhaps more specifically anti-Bush

Keep in mind that half the US population can't stand Bush either. He has tricked the other half using simplistic logic and religious games. I'm sure India will have its share of nightmare politicians. Democracy sometimes burps loudly.

and snigger every time the US has another finger slip from its tenuous position as the "world leader".

Just be careful what you wish for. The US's foreign policy is dominated more by incompetence than an attempt at "taking over the world". However, a different super-power may want more of the second.

But a strong India as a counter-weight to the US would be a nice thing. Who knows, if wages go up in India, then perhaps you will start outsourcing to us. Or, at least stuff will be more balanced out. It will be an interesting fusion of cultures.
         

Re:

[cerberusss]

(...) But, yet again we have demonstrated that it's very difficult to effectively transmit sarcasm over the internet.
--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.

WTF man!! You mistreat animals and DARE to put it in your signature?!! You are SO lame!!!?!

Re:

[CastrTroy]

Who would want a program written by low end coders? It would be like having a couch made out of shoddy materials, except that you could never get rid of it. If you are using a badly designed program and start using it for your day-to-day needs then that application contains all your data, and is often essential to how you do business. It's like like a couch where you can just throw it away, get a new one, and continue on as if the other one existed. Thinking you can do software with "Hello World" program

Re:

[Lally Singh]

Lots of internal business apps are written this way. Either by internal teams or consultants. The good programmers work for mainstream software vendors, and the rest (e.g. the lower 80% of the graduating CS majors, and everyone else who took a programming course in college) take these gigs.

Frankly, it comes down to not being able to get the good programmers to do it. They're either superpriced consultants or utterly unavailable as employees of software vendors that aren't going to write the code you want

Re:

[Tablizer]

Do you WANT to do low end coding or do you want to work on the actualy design of your software/hardware system. The part that has been outsourced to india is this low quality back end donkey work that can essentially be done by any one who can type a hello world program if the code is shown to them

I don't think it is necessarily "low end", often its just the side of things that are less customer-facing. It may be some intricate algorithm that is already fairly-well described in the requirements, but requi

Re:Tongue in cheek to the submitter

[stonewolf]

Well, I was one of those people doing high level design working in the R&D department of my company. I did a lot of research and design and a fair about of coding for the products we were developing.

One day I came in and found out that all the US employees of the company were being laid off. The owners of the company had found a software company in India that they could just buy for nothing and moved *all* the work, including R&D, to India. I guess that is at least one data point against the idea that only the grunt work has moved to India.

The first year I was unemployed I was able get a few interviews and some contract working running doing testing and one gig helping a company figure out how incompetent the US development staff was. (There are a lot of people all over the world who can write a program but are not qualified to design so much as a turd.)

The second year there were fewer contract jobs and interviews.

The third year I retrained as a teacher. After the third year the *only* company that has shown any interest in hiring me was an Indian company that was desperate enough for experienced people to offer to pay my relocation to India. After my kids are out of college my wife and I are seriously considering moving to India or China. I know a couple of people in my situation who are now living like kings pulling down what would be considered good US salaries, being paid in Euros, living in India and China.

Now I make a good wage (for an Indian) teaching people in the US what "click and drag" means. Believe it or not, but a *huge* portion of the people graduating from high school in the US have never used a PC and are scared shitless of having to use one. An even bigger portion of people over thirty do not know what "click and drag" means.

So, lets cut the crap about the quality of the jobs going to India. The only reason Indians aren't getting those jobs is that so many of them do not have the experience to do them. In India those jobs are being filled by Americans and Europeans with decades of experience. Not to mention the huge number of Indians and Chinese who went to school in the US and have worked here for decades who are now going back to start, run, or do high level work, in India and China.

Stonewolf

Re:

[mikael]

When I develop software modules, the stages are generally:

  (Research, Design, Implement, Test )*, Integrate (with main system)

During the implement and test stages, many new ideas are formed which get passed back to the research and design stages for the next generation. How can the two be split? All you are succeeding in doing is giving away the designs and improvements for your next generation products.

Lobbyists Lobbyists Lobbyists

[Tablizer]

Meanwhile companies back here in the US cry and sob that there are no ready-made senior-level employees for them to hire for rates far below the level that the self-created scarcity of such labor should command, since they shipped all the entry level positions overseas and can no longer find and promote their own talent from within.

It's called "lobbying". The lobbyists paint a picture of poorly-educated Americans so that Congress etc. will let them offshore and get more visa workers who work more hours fo

Re:

[FooAtWFU]

The lobbyists paint a picture of poorly-educated Americans so that Congress etc. will let them offshore

Hold on. Why should they need to ask Congress for permission anyway? Why can't they just hire whoever the heck feels like working for them? Why should they be forced to use American labor? Is there something inferior about Indians?

Sounds like the American labor force has some pretty decent lobbying going on too.

Besides, in the long run, if American firms can't hire Indian workers to do work for cheap, then Indian firms will hire Indian workers and compete with the American firms that way.

Re:

[Tablizer]

So if we open up the borders and let anybody and their dog come in, what happens?

Re:

[FooAtWFU]

So if we open up the borders and let anybody and their dog come in, what happens?

Places like Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Southern California near LA and San Diego have a bit of a hard time dealing with the population boom, especially as far as Schools are concerned. The Feds will probably bail them out. The wage for unskilled labor gets pushed down (good news for construction, bad news for construction workers... maybe LA can build a better transit system :P)... there's a small but significant rise in the number of doctors, scientists, and computer programmers - good news for tech/

Re:

[Tablizer]

You haven't convinced me that this surge in population is a good thing for the US. Some people will do well and some will get trounced, and traffic etc. will get ugly.

Re:

[xrobertcmx]

One of the main issues with the government needing to be asked is the simple fact that personal or confidential information is being provided to the offshore workers who are in a country that may not have the same laws that we do governing how this information is kept, how long it can be kept, what needs to be kept, and how the information needs to be handled. Now, I know for a certain fact that we have enough problems protecting it here, do I really want it being handled by a third party subcontractor wor

Re:

[freedom_india]

Where did she go? To remote no-road villages??? If she had been to cities like Bangalore, Delhi, Poona, Bombay, Madras, Jaipur, Nagpur, Calcutta, and even smaller towns like Solapur, Erode, Cochin, etc., she can buy toilet papers of 4 different brands in packets of one or four.
She should visit a shop for that. They don't deliver toilet paper home.
How i say this?
By experience: I had to travel between half the cities mentioned above, and i could buy it.

Re:

[dilipm]

How Ridiculous! In India we dont use toilet paper, we are more cleanly than that. We use Water with is a better cleansing agent than a piece of paper! Having said that your sister must have travelled to remote nameless roadless villages because i live in the city of chennai. Any upscale hotel (that while people who travel stay, the 3 or 5 star ones) would have toilet paper with them. All of our offices have toilet papers in the restroom. My house has toilet papers in the restroom. So does many other people

Re:

[freedom_india]

India is NOT a poverty-ridden country like Ghana or Sudan.
And third-world does not mean poor. It means non-aligned. During the soviet-coldwar-era, countries which aligned with US were called first world countries. Countries which aligned with USSR (Poland, Romania) were called Second world countries. Countries like India, Srilanka, which refused to align with any of them were called third-world countries.

Re:

[dilipm]

Mate, i live in india. While i agree with you that india is not broke ass like some of the african nations it certainly is not a developed or rich country and yes, we have poverty here everywhere! That is fact! Don't look at the cities and do your talking. Count the calories each indian induvidual gets compared to contries like malaysia, amercia, england etc., Your talking is as if india is fed on a silver spoon while its so not because i live here and i know it.

Re:

[AndGodSed]

Well THAT'S certainly crappy...

Re:Wimax or infrastructure

[superash]

This is exactly the kind of bullshit that I cannot take. Your sister comes to India and expects everything here to be like USA(going by your contact info at your homepage)? Would you have taken the same kind of comment from me if I was in the US and was asking for something that we Indians did over here? You would've have said -" If you want that then stay the fuck in your country". So, you get my point.

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

"If you want that then stay the fuck in your country".

You didn't just tell someone that if they want toilet paper then they need to stay the fuck out of India, did you? Because that's sure what it looks like to me.

Would you have taken the same kind of comment from me if I was in the US and was asking for something that we Indians did over here?

Yeah, I would. You want some ghee, garam masala, a tongue scraper? I'd send you to the local Indian store. I sure wouldn't tell you to go back to India, nor would anyone else with an ounce of common sense.

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What's your point ?

My point is that even if toilet paper isn't commonly provided in normal bathrooms in India, you can just buy some at a store that caters to ex-pats. Just like Indians in the USA can buy stuff that's not commonly available too.

You don't have to get the fuck out of the country and framing the discussion in those terms is the real flamebait, not my pointing it out.

Re:

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

soap and water on what?

Re:

[stormguard2099]

If your general prowess with humor is a good representation of most Indians then I shudder at the thought of the memes that would arise from slashdot.IN

Re:

[neomunk]

All your Madirs are belong to us? :-D

Re:

[neomunk]

Awww hell, messed that up, try again. ...
all your madir are belong to us ...
Stupid rules of grammar flirting through my neurons, making me to things its way...

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Therefore, slashdot.in could constructively complement the main site.It could provide a wider,more informed coverage of stories of interest to the growing community of indian technology professionals,sans the regular snide comments on outsourcing.

Well, go ahead and segregate yourselves. Maybe that works in India. That's not the american way. We are loud, ugly and mean. But we say what we are thinking in public - putting all our cards on the table, free-speech and the whole bit, and that ultimately leads to working things out. That's the way the melting pot works.

Going off to an indian-only slashdot enclave can let you pretend that people aren't bigots, but it does nothing to improve the situation. You'll have your own groups of troublemakers t

Re:

[__walk_the_talk]

You are right in most details.But you did'nt get the point.

slashdot.in does'nt have to be about "segregation".The idea is to increase the number of stories of relevance to indian professionals.Slashdot.org is a brilliant idea,that has proven its worth over the years.For me,it's success is all the more reason to go for a more india-centric sister site.

And no,segregation does'nt work in India.Democracy ensures that it does'nt work.We may hate democracy for the periodic electoral fracas,and the inefficient d

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Better to have a india subcategory then, as the same argument can be made for almost any 1st world or developing country.

I vote for an icon depicting something from the kama sutra.

Re:

[__walk_the_talk]

Better to have a india subcategory then

That does seem like an better idea overall.
A separate section for India and China will make a whole lot of sense.

Any ideas on how I might go about doing it?Do i have to wait for one of the mods to read this?

The FAQ does'nt say anything about creating sections

But this [slashdot.org] might be more reason to have a subsection rather than a separate site.

As for the icon,i vote for the tiger [wikipedia.org] :)

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You argument does'nt hold.

The SNR is much worse when it comes to stories concerning India.
I saw this on comments on this story...

That's because you don't understand the argument.

walk_the_talk just finished saying that SNR in the comments wasn't the problem: "The idea is to increase the number of stories of relevance to indian professionals"

If you want to argue about SNR in the comments, then see this. [slashdot.org]

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Sorry, I've got no idea at all how to convince slashdot to add a new category.

Re:

[the_masked_mallard]

When in Rome ... etc etc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_cleansing#Water [wikipedia.org] FYI, I am Indian.

Re:

[jalfreize]

Recently, I came to the US as a grad student, and was shocked that the US has no running water in their toilets.
They actually use pieces of paper!!!
Thats soo lame, not to mention yucky!!! ughhh...

Re:

[ghoul]

Indians actually like being clean so they use water instead of paper which just smears it around without really cleaning. Still if you like paper you can get it in most supermarkets . It will probably be expensive as it does not sell much and there are no economies of scale

Re:

[immerrath]

Well, we prefer to _clean_ our asses with water, as opposed to just smearing the poo a little bit.

Like mobile phones

[apathy maybe]

There is a good reason for under-developed countries like India not to invest in cabling. It is the same reason why such countries have so many mobile phones as compared to landlines.

Mobile phone towers are a lot cheaper to put up then running cables everywhere, they are a lot easier to upgrade, etc. (One reason why Japan and (West) Germany were able to do so well economically after WW2 was all the new equipment, all the old stuff having been bombed. Yes the money helped, but France got that money too...)

Anyway, good oh.

Re:Like mobile phones

[freedom_india]

Unfortunately mobile towers have the least redundancy in disaster times.
All mobile towers have a 99% utilisation in india.
It means if all the mobile users dial at the same time, you get a network busy tone. Heck i get a network busy tone about 30% of the time.
During a storm the mobile network is the first to fail.

Meanwhile the landline is the strongest network india has.
If the power goes off, the generators in the exchanges run it for 24 hours, and even if they fail, the batteries keep them for another 14 hours.
The generators are topped off with fuel almost weekly.

The mobile towers run on batteries for 7 hours max. After that they start dropping off one by one.

Re:

[CastrTroy]

Also, there is only so much bandwidth available in the electromagnetic spectrum. Once you fill the spectrum, it's very hard to find more capacity. With cabling, you can always add a little bit more, or use fibre optics to carry more data over the same size cable. Sure there's still limits, but cabled communications can provide much more bandwidth than wireless ever will. Wireless is the cheap way out that works now, but doesn't account for future growth. It's already becoming a problem with too many wi

Re:

[gnuman99]

Spectrum utilization is very, very important especially for large deployments. 250M => crazzy slow speed.

Anyway, wireless is least reliable, least secure method of deployment. It is also cheapest to deploy in the near term. In the long term, fiber is cheaper and by far more reliable and expandable.

WiMax may be a good secondary, low bandwidth connection to fiber/DSL. It is not a reliable primary connection though.

Re:

[RealGrouchy]

It means if all the mobile users dial at the same time, you get a network busy tone.

A side point, but if everybody is dialing out, then there is nobody with an idle line for any of these people to try to call.

I know, not what you meant...

- RG>

Re:

[ap7]

In India, mobile towers are usually backed up with gensets. This is because erratic power supply caused by massive electricity shortage makes is absolutely neccesary to.

Re:

[devangm]

I'm not sure which states this network is going to cover, but India is a pretty dense country. Wired would be more cost effective for the major cities and states. BSNL is known for having the best rural coverage so maybe it won't skimp on additional/redundant wireless and backhaul bandwidth. Still, covering 250 million people with 1.5Mbit is Sprint's goal too, and I doubt BSNL is going to spend the billions Sprint has. Not to mention Sprint's backbone is probably 10x as better as BSNL's as far as peak capac

Re:

[__walk_the_talk]

Your comment seems to imply that cabling is better than wireless.While this is certainly true for optic fibres,wireless will beat conventional copper twisted pair cabling hands down in many cases.The cost/capacity ratio is simply too skewed in favour of wireless,in India.And this has nothing to do with India being "under-developed".This is simple engineering. Anyway,India has a significant investment in Optic Fiber channels.There are companies both in public and private sectors,that specialize in making op

Re:

[andy1307]

This is more like Wireless in Local Loop [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[sameerds]

And of course, phone towers are far more difficult to steal than wires!

Meanwhile...

[dcollins]

"Meanwhile I can't even get cable. Maybe it's time to move to India."

Dude, the free market solves all problems. Didn't you get the memo?

Re:Meanwhile...

[Anonymous Coward]

XOHM (www.xohm.com) is coming *very* soon and will offer WiMAX across the US. Our WiMAX buildout will be complete long before India's is. Many parts of the network are already operational and many active (non-commercial) users are on the network today. Performance is also VERY good, better than advertised.

Re:

[Dunbal]

XOHM will make your city one big hot spot (COVERAGE NOT AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE).

      So I can get access everywhere except where I can't. Yawn. Call me when you have more than a couple silly videos to offer.

Re:

[c6gunner]

So I can get access everywhere except where I can't. Yawn. Call me when you have more than a couple silly videos to offer.

What, you think the Indian service will offer connectivity across 100% of the nation? Are you on crack?

What free market?

[slysithesuperspy]

And where, pray tell, in your fairy tail world is a free market?

Not the first one though

[NakNomik]

The largest private company in India (Reliance) has soft-launched [convergence.in] WiMax for consumers in some parts of Bangalore... and a quick search on Google reveals users are not very happy [wordpress.com]. SIFY, Aircel and VSNL already offer WiMax for corporate customers in some parts of the country..
More here [wimax.com]

Re:

[AndGodSed]

The best wireless we get in RSA is 1.8mbps on 3g with a 1gb cap, and the best wired sevice is 4mbps adsl with a 4gb cap.

sucks... no wimax...

Re:

[Eternauta3k]

I haven't read any WIMAX reviews, but usually all I hear about broadband providers, even in the US, are complaints.

Re:

[mosb1000]

Well, I have Time Warner cable internet, I live in Southern California, and I have no complaints. It's screaming fast and it's never lost service (that I've noticed). So you can count me as a satisfied broadband customer.

Re:

[freedom_india]

One satisfied broadband customer doesn't make a forest...
The fact that you are satisfied means you are not utilizing it fully.

Have you tried viewing more than one YouTube video at same time?
Have you tried Windows Update while trying to download videos from iTunes at same time?
Have you opened up 2-3 torrents uploading/downloading *linux* at same time?

Better yet have you tried all of the above steps at same time?

If not, then you have no right to be in this forum.

Re:

[Bluesman]

"Meanwhile, nobody will subsidize the cable service that I want so the costs are mostly hidden from me and borne by others who wouldn't otherwise pay for it."

There, fixed that so it will make more sense to you.

Re:

[bigpicture]

Exactly! I see this argument all the time, where the interests of the John Q Citizen is presumed to be served by the free market. Like the interests of the large Corporations and the individual were presumed to be one and the same by the elected government. So when it comes to government loyalties, is it where the votes come from, or where the money comes from? The conflict of interests broken government contention! (I am presuming that your post was sarcastic here.)

Re:

[falconwolf]

"Meanwhile I can't even get cable. Maybe it's time to move to India."

Dude, the free market solves all problems. Didn't you get the memo?

What free market? There isn't one.

Falcon

Re:

[Daimanta]

True, if there was a free market you'd be able to buy a sarcasm detector ;)

Re:

[falconwolf]

True, if there was a free market you'd be able to buy a sarcasm detector ;)

It's hard to detect sarcasm without visual cues, especially on /. where so many don't understand or know what a free market is.

Falcon

Re:

[ap7]

I don't think you've studied the Indian telecom market. If you look closely, a free and extremely competitive market has made the telecom business what it is today. Compare this with the regulated market that you love so much from 20 years ago in the same country and you will see the difference.

Which three states?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Andhrapradesh? That would make sense. Infact Chennai-Bangalore-Hyderabad triangle alone would be worth it.

But given the hype and meddling by politicians, they might be pouring money in Godforsaken places like the Bihar-Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan corridor.

Re:Which three states?

[oook_in]

Looks like it's Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. This article [thehindubusinessline.com] also mentions that the roll out is supposed to happen by 2010. The weird thing is that the city of Mumbai in Maharashtra is serviced by another telecom company MTNL and not BSNL. I wonder if it will be covered by this WiMax network.

Re:

[dodobh]

MTNL used to be separate, but they are now a part of BSNL.

Re:

[grepya]

of course the usual south vs north India ugliness raises it's head on slashdot too. I see and hear a lot of this when in India.

3G might be winning out rather than WiMax in India

[ScorpFromHell]

Computer penetration is not as good as mobiles in India. Also a 3g mobile is far cheaper (~ $200) than a computer (~ $300).

The common man is more comfortable with using a mobile than a computer.

If enough mobile apps are made available for most of the stuff that the common man requires it might be possible that 3g phones win over the wimax connected phones.

In addition to the apps like feed readers, gmail, google maps, browsers, there need to be applications that can enable the common man to bank, pay bills, shop, get weather updates (atleast warnings), get various examination results (believe it or not, this is a big business for small time entrepreneurs in the rural districts), make bookings in trains, buses, etc.

Moving to India (temporarily)

[grepya]

Seriously though, it's not a bad idea for a young person starting his/her career in the western world to spend some time in India right about now. It will be fun (for some values of "fun") and a great asset on your resume.

Re:

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Yeah, but get ready for a *massive* culture shock. When you arrive there, it's like you landed on a different planet or went back in time 100 years in the urban cities and 200-300 years in the villages.

So... as they say here on slashdot: Goodluckwiththat!

Re:

[__walk_the_talk]

As an indian,i'd really like to know what exactly do you mean by a "*massive* culture shock"

Move to India :O

[bingo_cannon]

Maybe it's time to move to India. Don't you dare take your jobs back!

India had wireless long ago !

[kicks-ass]

The Russians dug 1000 ft in the ground and found copper wire, They declared Russians had electricity 1000 years back US dug and found Optical fibre, and said US had telepphone 2000 years back Indians dug, found nothing, Then said we had wireless communication technology 5000 years back

Netsukuku

[ClioCJS]

Sounds ideal for a large Netsukuku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsukuku [wikipedia.org]) deployment to me. P2p heaven! Power to the people.

While I don't think it's a bad thing...

[doyoulikeworms]

Providing broadband for millions of people in a country where tens (hundreds?) of millions more are in deep poverty is a modern-day version of "trickle down" economics.

Re:

[FooAtWFU]

Providing broadband for millions of people in a country where tens (hundreds?) of millions more are in deep poverty is a modern-day version of "trickle down" economics.

Is there something wrong with providing said broadband? Should the existence of said poverty preclude the building of broadband? Does it add to the poverty? Must resources be diverted to the problem of such poverty before all else? Is this even possible? Would it be effective, if it was? If it is desirable, why not divert resources from elsewhere, like the United States? (Isn't that one thing that outsourcing accomplishes, to some extent?) If it is extremely desirable, why aren't you voluntarily divertin

viable solution

[dotservant.com]

I think it is much more viable to deploy wireless infrastructure instead of physical cables for covering such a wide geographical area.

Commercial WiMax already deployed in Pakistan

[tiemand2007]

One of the leading Telecom companies in Pakistan has already deployed commercial wimax in all major cities, covering near 50 million people. Apparently the project has led to a reduction of broadband prices [irfanhabib.com] all over Pakistan.

Stupid question from a n00b for anyone out there.

[The Cydonian]

What's the difference between HSDPA and WiMax? I already have a 1.5 MBPS HSDPA line for my mobile; what additional stuff would WiMax provide?

Thanks!

Re:

[AndGodSed]

I hope you are joking... or you have clearly never been stuck without water...

Re:

[calebt3]

I was joking.

Re:

[AndGodSed]

I thought as much!

No Internet either

[mi]

Some things (like Internet) are more important than clean water.

There is no Internet either. Even the stated goal:

response to government requirement that 20 million broadband lines be in service by 2010." Meanwhile I can't even get cable. Maybe it's time to move to India.

means far lower broadband penetration, than in the US (itself hardly a champion in this area). India has well over a billion people — more than three times America's population. Yet even its goal for 2 years from now is much lower

Re:

[ScorpFromHell]

May be you are not aware of the realities out here. If it were only upto the free market, they would never go to the rural India, where India resides but not the money. There is no restriction on the free market to not implement WiMax but they aren't going to the rural areas even though they have started providing it in Bangalore & other urban areas.

Re:

[mosb1000]

That's stupid. Just because they haven't built it yet doesn't mean they would never build it. You should always start with the area with the highest return first.

Re:

[naren_pspl]

There is nothing wrong in starting with metros and tier-2 cities. Just setting up WiMax in rural area is one thing, providing equipments and training to use the network is the most important thing. So, once the setup is successful in metro and you have good income from those cities, the telco can tie up with NGO and other agencies to spread awareness and provide required training in rural areas. The reason it will all soon come to rural areas is because of booming retail market in india esp. for farm produc

Re:

[aolsheepdog]

Or more accurately internet service that is "capable" of 256Kbps.

My airtel 256Kbps service rarely provided more than 100Kbps. I upgraded to the 512Kbps and now I get between 200Kbps and 300Kbps depending on time of day.

Yesterday - Republic Day - I was getting a whopping 50Kbps all day.