Sunday 4 September 2016

Advent of Reliance Jio


I'm not going to focus on Reliance Jio's info that's commonly available. I will be presenting my opinion on Reliance Jio's advent.

Free calls and text messages sounds awesome but its already free in a way, if you have internet. Whatsapp and similar apps let's you make free calls, way2sms and similar sites let's you send free text messages. What other ISPs foolishly tried to do before was increase tariffs of using whatsapp. People started exploring similar sites and hike in whatsapp's cost didn't encourage users to use voice data.
With increase usage of internet people will anyway reduce using voice service as it costs. There's no way ISPs can stop users accessing free calling apps. Reliance is quick to realize this and started plans that allows unlimited local and STD calls at plans as less as 149/a month.

It's well known that ISPs are making lesser profits through voice and text services. Reliance is letting go of these temporary gains to capture future market. Other ISPs will be forced to reduce prices to stay in the market. In the war between ISPs, common public will be the biggest beneficiaries. This is the beauty of free market.

Wednesday 22 April 2015

Against Net Neutrality


To begin with i too was blind supporter of Net Neutrality (NN) like most of us. Who wouldn't want same access for all web content at same prices? Catchy words like Telecom companies, ISPs want to end Internet freedom, create monopolies grab everyone’s attention. Especially if we believe in free market and competition. I was influenced by couple of RWs who not only opposed Net Neutrality but called it Socialism. The term Socialism made me to read other side of Net Neutrality (NN).

                  
Is Internet a public utility?

With the exception of open source code and public domain content, every part of the Internet is private property: property owned by someone. The content of websites is owned by its authors. The specialized computers (servers) that a Web content provider, such as Google, uses to make its content available on the Web must be purchased and maintained by Web Content provider. The computer that a Web surfer uses to access websites such as Google and to check his email must be purchased and maintained by him and is therefore his private property Likewise, the cables, computers, wireless transmitters, and other equipment used by an Internet service provider (ISP) to connect Web surfers to online content is purchased and maintained by that provider and is therefore its rightful property.  Each of these parties has the right to use their property in profitable manner, including the right to deal with the other parties by mutual agreement to mutual benefit. The Internet is not public property. Telecommunications companies have spent billions on network infrastructure all over the world. They did so in the hope of selling communications services to customers willing to pay for them. The government has no right to regulate their networks.


How does Internet work?

Anyone who uses the Internet understands on some level: The internet functions by sending small clusters of information called data packets from one computer to other. This is how we get to see various web contents on the Internet. The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) own the wires and cables through which these data packet travels. and charge web surfers for using their service. ISPs own the wires and cables. ISPs do a statistical analysis of their network to determine what contention ratio is appropriate for their user base and that’s the ratio between actual bandwidth and potential maximum demand. that's how they make network Infrastructure. If the ISPs start making dedicated path for every user it will be costly and at the same time all users do not use maximum bandwidth at all times.  So if there's a live cricket match and everybody logs on to see the match over the data transmission lines of their internet company everyone will get drop frames.(Buffering). This is called Network congestion.In simple words if everyone decides to go to a cricket stadium at the same time there will be traffic jam. ISPs usually use complex algorithms to reroute connections in order to alleviate possible network congestion. That's only so much they can do if the carrying capacity of the network as a whole is exceeded. When the carrying capacity of the network is exceeded the only solution is expand Network infrastructure to create more series of tubes that internet runs on or to borrow somebody else's capacity. This sharing of data is a voluntary arrangement among the ISPs. They can achieve better performance and they can distribute larger amount of traffic.


Why ISPs want to build fast lanes and Slow Lanes?

ISP providers claim certain Web content providers like You tube etc. are responsible for network congestion on their network, crippling their bandwidth and increasing their rerouting cost. Obviously if you’re going to buy someone else's network they will charge you more than your own. So ISPs are proposing idea of fast lines and slow lanes. Basically it’s these large video streaming sites, large size files that are bandwidth intensive. The Web content providers who use intensive bandwidth will have to pay for fast lanes. Cause the ISPs will have to build more tubes and for that they either have to charge the customers or the Web Content providers. If i were an ISP provider i would not want to go to a user and ask him if he wants fast access to a certain website he has to pay for. Because they would say why I should pay for certain website when i am already getting it at decent speed. People would just leave ISP service and go to others who are charging less. Instead if ISPs ask Web content to pay for additional infrastructure required for streaming HD videos to millions of people then the consumer gets the better experience. This is a standard practice in market. So it’s up to these content providers either to pay additional infrastructure from their profits or charge the end users. Main point is to charge the intensive they may increase rates of certain websites in short run or the long run but that's not something cable companies should have to worry aboutThis is precisely why Web content providers are supporting Net Neutrality because they will not have to pay more individually. These Web providers who support NN will run for cover if we ask them to give free access to their paid content.


How will these fast lanes and slow lanes work in real time?

When an ISPs network receives a data packet it will inspect the id and if the id is of a content provider who is paying for the fast lane it will deliver that data through its optimal node path and all other traffic would be diverted to low priority lanes making the delivery slower but notice if it a webpage which has small amount of data. But the reality is it may be faster than if fast and slow lanes are not developed. Because if the fast lanes means all the data intensive stuffs will be routed away from the network which deal with things like emails, chats, podcast's, emails. Suppose if high data intensive stuffs and lower data intensive stuffs are to share same data path everything will slower for lesser data intensive stuffs. But if the more intensive data stuff and lesser data intensive stuff travel in different lanes the low priority lane may actually end up being fast. Simple analogy if an Industrial corridor is built and heavy vehicles are made to use it traffic might actually reduce.
So the ISPs say if they are not allowed to do fast and slow lanes then they have to charge more for everyone. But if these ISPs are allowed to make fast and slow lanes then they will charge the Web content providers for expansion of their infrastructure. The Net Neutrality brigade say allowing the ISPs to block or throttle the website or restrict the traffic will give them unfair advantage over other competing services, large content providers who have access to fast lanes will have advantage over the others. I really doubt an ISP will simply block a website it will be kind of censorship like market censorship and it will bring bad name for the ISP. Recently we have seen thousands of Flipkart users quit Flipkart assuming Airtel has got speed access and others won’t. ISPs are in business they would not dare to fight with a lynch mob for censoring a website None the less big companies will have advantages. But it doesn't mean smaller companies who use less data intensive stuffs will be affected mush.

Side effects of Net Neutrality

Everyone will have same access speed.

There should be of ability to prioritize certain kinds of traffic. Different kinds of communications have different bandwidth requirements. Watching movies over the web is bandwidth-intensive, but not time-critical. Teleconferences are both bandwidth intensive and time critical. Some applications like remote surgery and other time-critical services are simply impossible over the public Internet with current technology. Users should have alternatives to choose from. One size doesn't fit all.

If X's house is on fire and Y needs water to brush his teeth obviously X needs more water than Y. But with NN even if X is ready to pay extra money he won't get extra water.

Internet will not be economical.

If ISPs are not allowed to charge certain web content provider it will be forced to charge end users. What worse are people who don’t use certain data intensive web contents will be forced to pay for network infrastructure cost and rerouting cost. Why should anyone pay for the services he or she doesn't even use?

Slower Internet in long term

With lesser profits ISPs may chose not to reroute or expand their network causing more Network congestion. ISPs will not invest in expanding and upgrading their network. By denying an Internet service provider its right to manage its property, net neutrality throttles its incentive to invest in new bandwidth. If an ISP is forced to turn over a large portion of its bandwidth to a small portion of its customer base, its overall capacity is not being used profitably, and it therefore has much less incentive to increase its capacity by investing in the expansion of its infrastructure. Already ISPs are hit by drop in SMS and call rates,


Privacy

Who will monitor ISPs to ensure they are giving same access same speed to all users. People won’t trust ISPs monitoring themselves so most likely government that will monitor Internet through TRAI. The government will need to verify, at a technical level, whether the telecoms are treating data as they should. Don’t be surprised if that means the government says it needs to be able to install its own hardware and software at critical points to monitor Internet traffic. Once installed, can we trust this government, or any government, to use that access in a benign manner?

Do we really need government's intervention? 

Think of an industry that has major problems. Public schools, Health care, Electricity, Railways, banking, infrastructure etc. What do all these industries and/or organizations have in common? They are all little or heavily government regulation. On the other hand we see that where deregulation has occurred, innovation has bloomed, Good example for this is 10 years back SMS, call rates were very high but today its very cheap

The biggest fear I have of NN brigade won’t stop here they will ask for more regulations in future. The main objective of Net Neutrality isn’t to create neutrality, it is to create and bad economic environment for private investors which will subsequently be followed by government invest. Once the government becomes sole provider of the Internet. At that point if ruling government doesn't like rival’s ideology they will ban or slow down their websites. When government gets to choose winners and losers guess who is going to be the loser? People who pay taxes!!

The agenda of Net Neutrality brigade is to create bad economic situation and dry private investment naturally investors will run away because they won’t get proper returns. At that point someone has to step in and save the day- it will be the government. Let’s face it Private investors are investing lakhs of crores which means they expect to get pretty good returns on their investment, If they are taking big risk in investing money. Suppose if investor is investing little money say 100 Rs loss of 30 Rs won’t affect him but if he is investing lakhs of crores it will certainly affect him.  Right now we are fighting a free market fight against Net Neutrality.  ISPs are answerable to customers; they are in constant battle with one and other to deliver the new technologies best services at best rates. All this is generated by competition and that competition needs lots of investment. The Free market fight will quickly become free speech fight once NN supporters are having their ways, which is more government involvement in the internet. If you don’t like one Tata you can opt for Airtel, if you don’t like Airtel you can opt Reliance. We got only one government if they are making rules they will also choose content. Once they get to choose content we are done for good!!
The worse is government doesn’t need to answer. They will provide what they feel is good and block what they feel is bad and we can’t do anything.


No one can estimate the growth of Internet.

Fifteen years back no one would have expected Internet would grow so big. Internet is still evolving and the last we can do is stunting its growth by involving the government. We never know Five to Ten years from now a new satellite technology may emerge that makes fiber obsolete, and we’ll all be getting wireless Gigabit downloads from space directly to our smartphones, anywhere in the world, Unrealistic? Just think what someone would have said in 1994 if you had tried to explain to them everything you can do today on an iPhone, and at what price. 

My point is let’s give free market a fair chance to find solution and have zero government interference.



I’m not a good writer and most of the above content are written by others. I have compiled their views and added some of my views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z_nBhfpmk4&index=7&list=WL

Sunday 15 February 2015

My take Delhi 2015 debacle

Delhi Debacle

Well well all of us were shocked by Delhi elections results. Some might still have hangover of this humiliating defeat. BJP central government has been doing good on most of the fronts and this verdict was shocking. We got all 7 LS seats and were leading in 60 constituencies of Delhi and now we got just 3 seats. Could BJP have reversed the result maybe yes maybe not but there is nothing we can do about the results now. No one will listen to our argument "BJP got 32.1% all that matters is how many seats BJP got". All we can do now is introspection and revamp our strategy to prevent such  shocks in future.

What was the need to hold elections?
BJP+ had 32 seats in Delhi 2013 Assembly elections. We should have formed minority government. Alas! We tried to be generous, great in front of Delhi junta and gave AAP chance to firm government. One can understand BJPs greatness act before 2014 General Elections. But not forming government after winning Delhi was foolishness let's accept this. Two rebel AAP MLA Vinod Kumar Binny and MS Dhir had already distanced themselves from AAP and later joined BJP. Splitting AAP would not have been ethical Fiberals would have criticized us but Delhi could have been saved from anarchy. As time passed by AAP would have lost its political relevance. Public have small memory. T hey would have seen AAP as a failed experiment and stuck with traditional parties. If Delhi junta can forget 49days wala bhagoda in less than a year give him a second chance  they would've certainly forgotten BJPs unethical move to grab power by 2018. BJP gave much needed air for AAP to live no wonder it has smacked BJP as soon as it got the opportunity.

Election Timing

Many will blame BJPs defeat on bad election timings. They think if elections were conducted earlier BJP would've won. AAP has been reaching out to their target voters since May. They had enough time to apologize for running away in 49 days and make never ending promises. Some say Delhi elections should have been conducted along with other state elections. In my opinion conducting parallel elections would boomeranged as BJP had uphill task in states like Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand. BJP did perform well in Lok sabha in these states but BJP did not have good base in these states. This might have costed them heavily. So in  a way holding elections separately was right. Perhaps we can blame BJP Delhi unit which was not prepared for the elections. As I've already said AAP had been campaigning since may last year. Obviously BJP leadership must have known this but they did not take it seriously. Not to mention BJP Delhi unit is one of the worst run BJP state units. They were hoping Modi wave and smart electoral strategy of Maestro Amit Shah will somehow make them win. BJP is in the center, they have every resource, right from scheduling elections to strong booth level management.

Kiran Bedi as CM
I don't buy naive arguments like BJP defeated itself by importing leaders from other parties. BJP did the same in Lok Sabha, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and won. Although I agree making a inexperienced Kiran Bedi Delhi CM candidate was wrong.In my opinion Kiran Bedi lost upper hand the day she openly supported Modi and asked people to vote for BJP. The surprise element was gone. Kejru who used to say "We will give Bedi CM post if she joins AAP" started saying she is a BJP agent. BJP kept on saying in LS we can't give country to inexperienced leaders. Well Well we did exactly the same in Delhi let's say we took a Kejru turn . Out of nowhere we made Bedi CM candidate..Imagine BJP grass root leaders who toiled for decades, who were there with the party in hard times getting ignored for a first timer who has zero experience and who basically joined politics to become CM of Delhi. All know Kiran Bedi is honest and must have become one of the best CM of Delhi if given a chance but that's a different matter altogether, As soon as Bedi came in she tried to take control over the party. Remember news where Dr Harshvardhan could not attend the meeting for some reason. KB tried to sideline old guards of the party when she actually needed their support..This led to resent in the party. I remember scene on NDTV(i don't see it usually) where one BJP worker said he didn't even know when he was made Panna Pramukh. Another cadre added BJP workers were not even called to campaign for their party. This was the condition in BJPs safest constituency Krishna Nagar. This tells us how workers were sidelined by the top leadership.

BJP going slow on issues that matter public.
Many may say BJP is taking no action against Gandhi's, black money issue.
For the First time in 3 decades Gandhi's were summoned by court on National Herald Scam!
BJP did take back some land from Robert Vadra in Rajasthan, Haryana but that is not enough. BJP has to do more and prosecute corrupt Congress Chors, Media thugs. This may sound another non sense theory but i think a big cabinet minister is protecting these thugs and you know who i am pointing at. I'm not saying arrest all the corrupts at once but at least send some lite weights behind the bars and send feelers to public that BJP is taking some action against the corrupts. Why Cant the BJP govt arrest smaller thugs like Baisakhi chor Salman Khurshid, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Kalmadi, Rajiv Shukla NDTV etc.  For bigger thugs like Vadra, Gandhi's start a inquiry and show junta constant progress.
BJP govt did set up an SIT on black money issue. 3,500 crore Rs has already been recovered by the govt but BJP did not utter a single word on this in the elections 
Going slow on corruption cases and black money has created bad impression that govt is not serious on these important issue.

Role of media
.
We believe what we see and read that's how our perception is made. Media creates this perception. Let me tell you BJP has lost perception battle in social media and traditional media hands down.
You ask an average voter his view on Kejru he will say
Good guy, drama karta he par banda sahi he, nautanki he par imandar he, acha banda he isliye Ambani  adani ne isse hara diya, Kejru ayega to corruption nahi hoga, Kejru 49 days me sab theek tha etc etc... Media has created this perception about Kejru. Let's not forget how media shamelessly rooteed for AAP in last few weeks of Delhi elections.
I like every BJP supporter feel BJP is deliberately targeted by traditional media. Now you might want to know where  BJP failed in Media strategy. BJP did not instill fear in Media. That's how you tame them! There are many cases against news channels like NDTV,Times Now, Editors of famous news channels. All BJP had to do was file few cases send a clear message to these thugs!
Even if BJP doesn't want to prosecute these thugs for being called generous, Great, at least they could have setup inquiries and put the facts and figures in public domain! Let people decide whose right or wrong!!
For example we see repeated news of love jihad, ghar vapasi, Hindu leader advising Hindus for having 4 children.

Q)
      Are Hindu organization only one who do conversions?
Ans)  HELL NO!!!  Muslims and Christians convert thousands of Hindus every *day* and this news doesn't get reported.
Q)     Only Hindu leaders ask Hindus for 4 kids?
Ans)  Pope has repeatedly asked Christians for having 4 kids! Kerala Christian padery give financial assistance to xtians having many babies. Many prominent Mullahs have also openly advocated M should have many babies.

Q)
      Are Hindu outfits only talking about dangers of love jihad?
Ans)   If we go by reports from Kerala, 28000 odd girls have been forced to convert. Situation is alarming in other states too. Not just BJP some Kerala Christian priests have also spoken on love jihad menace. It's not a small issue for you if your community is not on the receiving end. And Media has been repeatedly planting stories where Hindus are shown in bad light. BJP is not responsible for actions of some Hindu outfits! Ghar vapasi was done during Congress  regime also but all were silent.
Media successfully down played every good work done by PM Modi. They have created a perception Modi in pro rich doing nothing for common man. Recollect how media reported high prices of groceries which is utterly false, Inflation is down. For first time in 10 years our jawans are giving fitting response to Pakistanis. No one talks about positive current account surplus, growing economy, Multi billion $$ trade agreements Modi signed with other countries, nuclear bill. No positive talks about Modi only negative news and holding Modi responsible for random acts of some unknown Hindu outfits whose names Modi might not have even known before.Their hatred for Modi and Hindus are out in open.


Local issues

We can't sell good  governance message and same time do corruption in MCD.This backfired on BJP.
BJP had 9 months when law and administration were in its control. If they had done well people would have voted BJP.
BJP hoped to get Jat, Gujjar votes in outer Delhi like it got last time around. Last time Jats voted Modi as they were angry at because government was not being neutral to them in Muzzafarnagar riots. What has BJP done for Jats who are kept behind the bars even now? How can we expect them to vote when we dont punish perpetrators of Muzzafarnagar Riots.
Poorvanchalis voted BJP heavily during last elections how many seats did we give them this time around? Add to that freebies promised by AAP did pull them towards their side.
I came across C Rajagopalachari's interesting point. He said BJP central govt had introduced Bio-metric attendance system in government offices and lazy central government employees who are used to lazy culture had to maintain time. This did make them vote against BJP.
LAB did hurt BJP in rural areas of Delhi.   
No one knows that why was Dr Harshvardhan has been sidelined by the central leadership. He got us 31 seats last time. As soon as Modi removed him from Health ministry my hunch was he will be made Delhi CM candidate. It never happened.
BJPs manifesto dint make much appeal to people of Delhi. I remember how effectively Nitin Gadkari  made manifesto in 2013 elections.  not to forget AAP blatantly copied some parts of BJPs manifesto.


This Delhi elections has certainly change future of India tremendously, for good or for bad only time will tell.