eskay

Thanks, Harsh.

Hi folks, Need some advice. Am considering the HP Pavilion dv5118TX for purchase. The specs are: • Microsoft® Windows® XP Home • Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2300 with Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology (1.66GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 667MHz FSB) • 15.4" colour WXGA BrightView • 1GB (1 x 1GB) DDR2 SDRAM (667MHZ) • 100GB (5400 rpm) HDD • Dual Layer DVD±RW/±R • NVIDIA GeForce® Go 7400 (up to 256MB system memory shared with >=512MB system memory). • Price: Around 65K Need it for graphics related work. Anybody out there with any experience on this machine? Any feedback to give? Any advice to share? Many thanks in advance. eskay.

I'm on Win 2K. Problem remains. FWT moved around. Cable is genuine. Nothing works.

Nikhil, no guarantees. It may work or it may not. It doesn't for me; I have the same problem.

The HutchAccess service from Hutch must be one of the most expensive Internet access services in the world! They charge Rs 199/- per month plus 50p per 10kB data transfer. According to my calculations, that translates to Rs 51.20 per MB of data transfer! If my maths is correct, Hutch must have set a rcord of sorts! HutchAccess

Maruti is going to give hi-tech training on simulators. So, no chance of a totally raw driver on the road making life miserable. For, other totally raw drivers!

When will they quit trying to control technology instead of trying to use it for the good of citizens of this country? It's like saying that a petrol car can go on the highway but a diesel car can stay only within city limits. Dammit, the technology has moved on since you last wrote the telecom policy. Change your policy.

You lucky man!

The phone is free for calls when you are online. This is what MTNL says: "Simultaneous availability of Phone and Internet on the existing Telephone line..."

abhay, these are the new rates. Compare the old rates with the new tariff!

Okay, guys, rates for MTNL ADSL broadband are out as are the download caps. This is the link to the Delhi site but rates will be the same for Mumbai. Only thing is that I'm not too sure about the roll-out dates. For my area, R K Puram, CC said March-April. Will check again. The bottomline acc. to me: this is the beginning of the fun.

Netvigator has a 100 hour cap for its 'upto 3M' offering. Additional hours @ HKD 2 per hour. 22655[/snapback] There is a difference between actually signing up for the service and reading about it on the website. 22711[/snapback] Really?! That's bad marketing.

Netvigator has a 100 hour cap for its 'upto 3M' offering. Additional hours @ HKD 2 per hour.

Hi Ashok. Must be some quirk. I've been using firefox and gmail quite extensively from both, office and residence, and I've faced no problems. Tried the Mozilla Forums for a solution?

Read this and you know what I'm talking about: BT trials 2Mb consumer broadband service Superfast connection scheduled for launch early next year Robert Jaques, vnunet.com 24 Nov 2004 BT Retail today kicked off a trial 2Mbps DSL service targeted at home users. The BT IP Stream Home 2000 consumer broadband service is four times faster than its current standard 512Kbps broadband offering. Gavin Patterson, group managing director at BT's consumer and ventures division, said: "We are aware that our customers often have very different needs. To that end we are continuously reassessing our product offerings and investing in finding new opportunities. "This trial period is designed to ensure that the basics are in place from the outset, and that we are confident of being able to deliver the best broadband experience when we launch early in the new year." The trial is due to start on 29 November and will last for approximately eight weeks. Places on the trial are already allocated, but customers can find out more details about the proposed new service and register their interest at BT's website here. This news item from vnunet.com

3G is starting out in Europe. WiMax is on its way. Wireless is the future. Or, is it?

See http://www.bsnl.co.in/newsdetailed.php?news_id=111 for some idea. It's an old press release from BSNL.

With FLAG and TYCO and other cables/links, things are getting better.

Hey guys, you need to read this from Rediff: MTNL broadband: local calls free! November 03, 2004 18:18 IST Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd will start its broadband services in Delhi from January next year and will bundle the broadband connection with its telephone service in which local calls will be free to the subscriber. "We have placed the purchase order for broadband with the vendors and will start the service from January. We are creating a capacity of 350,000 lines distributed 50:50 between Mumbai and Delhi. We are targeting 100,000 broadband subscribers in both Delhi and Mumbai with 50,000 each in the metros," R S P Sinha, CMD, MTNL, told newspersons here on the sidelines of a function. He said MTNL is planning to charge a composite monthly payment where the local calls may be free. "We have a plan doing away with the local call charges. We may charge a lump sum amount which may include cost of both the local call and broadband charges," he said, adding that MTNL is already offering the lowest tariff in call rates and the same can be expected in broadband also. MTNL will invest Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) in its broadband initiative which will be spent over the period till December. Ericsson will provide the equipment for broadband. The PSU is targeting a broadband subscriber base of 10 lakh (1 million) by December 2005 and out of that it expects 500,000 each in Mumbai and Delhi. Sinha expects that by January-end MTNL would be able to offer high-speed Internet access. "After meeting the minimum broadband speed of 256 kbps for broadband, he said the maximum speed can go up to 20 Mbps," he said. Check it out at Rediff

I still think that the Hutch ad does a better job of depicting wide network coverage without making far-fetched promises like the AirTel advert.

Just read this at http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=95769 Ericsson to Supply Broadband Access Network to Delhi and Mumbai Ericsson has been selected by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), one of the leading Indian incumbent operators to supply broadband access network to Delhi and Mumbai, the country's two largest metropolitan areas. MTNL plans to launch the services by the end of this year, offering broadcast TV, video on demand and high- speed Internet. The contract is on a turnkey basis for the supply and rollout of Ericsson's solutions Ethernet DSL Access and Ethernet aggregation technology into the MTNL network. It includes a complete end-to-end broadband access solution including upgrading of existing telephony lines with Ethernet DSL technology, customer premises equipment,bandwidth provisioning system and aggregation network.

Of late BSNL and MTNL have been much more responsive on the price front than Reliance. Especially on fixed line phones. Maybe Reliance is too busy solving all its billing problems!

Netway helpline!! What's that??!!

British Gas to invest $25 million in Indian broadband venture Venkatachari Jagannathan 23 June 2004 Chennai: British Gas, the UK based energy major will be investing around $25 million in expanding its broadband Internet business in India. The UK company's 100 per cent subsidiary BG Broadband India Pvt Limited, currently offers Internet over cable in 10 cities riding on Railtel's backbone (intercity) and its own inside a city. "The fresh investments will be for consolidating our existing operations/infrastructure and our planned expansion. The investments will be made over a span of two years," discloses CEO EVS Chakravarthy. According to him, British Gas has already invested a similar amount in India since it started the broadband operations here in 2001. Offering its Iqara Broadband brand net over cable service in Mumbai, Surat, Baroda, Ahemadabad, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Vishakapatnam and Gurgoan, BG Broadband India plans to expand its operations to 8/10 more cities. "This would include B class business cities/towns like Mysore, Coimbatore and Tiruppur. We are present in cities that commands nearly 70 per cent of the broadband market," he adds. The company - a category A Internet service provider (ISP) and Infrastructure Provider 1 licence holder- is fast ramping up its subscriber base in the cities where it operates. According to Chakravarthy, from a subscriber base of 6,000 at the end of 2002, BG Broadband India grew its base to 25,000 in 2003 to 50,000 currently. "We hope to close this calendar/financial year with a subscriber base of 80,000-1 lakh." In terms of revenue, this would translate to Rs80 crore, a jump of Rs60 crore from 2003's turnover of Rs20 crore. Broadband in India is a much misused term. Anything over the dial up speed of 36 kpbs was termed as broadband whereas overseas a minimum speed of 128 kbps was considered as broadband. With the entry of net over cable players broadband was defined here as access speed of 64 kbps (actual delivery is around 50 kbps) and above. Curiously the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in its consultation paper has termed broadband service as the one that offers access speed of 256 kbps and above. Given this position, a new term `wideband' is now coming in vogue to denote ISPs offering net access speed between 36 kbps and 256 kbps. Netting the subscribers at high speed Meanwhile Chakravarthy claims that BG Broadband India is the only company in the country that offers a dedicated speed of 256 kbps to each of its subscribers. "The ramping up of our subscriber base and the voice quality of our Internet telephony service is the proof of our pudding. We have one fibre node for every 1,000 homes and the maximum distance between two amplifiers is 600 metres," he adds. Within four months of its silent entry into select areas of the Chennai market, BG Broadband India claims to have enlisted around 600 subscribers, some migrating from Hathway Cable and Datacom Pvt Limited, the incumbent service provider. Speaking about BG Broadband India's pricing strategy Chakravarthy says that traditionally broadband in India was started at a price point of Rs1,000 per month targeting on those who spent more than that sum. "As per our study 38 per cent of the dial up subscriber did not spend more than Rs400 per month towards net access. Another thirty per cent spent around Rs800-the middle segment- and only 32 per cent of the dial up subscribers spent over Rs1,200-1,500 per month." In order to attract the middle segment — deterred by the fixed rate plan and modem cost/rent- BG Broadband India came out with its aggressive pricing plans. "We were the first in the country to introduce data transfer/usage based tariff," he remarks. Further the subscribers were allowed to carry forward their unused entitlement, a facility denied by others to their subscribers. Unlike its competitors, the company provides the cable modem free on receipt of a refundable security deposit. "Eighty per cent of our subscribers have gone for data usage based plans." Apart from poaching customers from other net over cable players, BG Broadband India poses a serious threat to the digital subscriber line (DSL) service providers like Bharti, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited. As the till box rings with cash (average revenue per user Rs1,000 per month) due to prepaid connections, the default and cost of collection is really very low for BG Broadband India. "We are also trying to match Trai's expectation of offering broadband service for a monthly charge of Rs600. However that is possible only when the bandwidth prices come down further," Chakravarthy remarks. The company sources around 45MB from the Hong Kong based Reach and plans to increase the bandwidth purchase to 155MB by the end of this year. Agreeing that the competition is severe now Hathway Cable's head (sales, marketing and customer services: south India) Karthik Bhaskaran says, "It is we who brought down the prices by passing on the reduction in bandwidth prices. It should be remembered that we are the number three ISP in the country and continue to add subscribers at a faster clip." According to him, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai are the four fast growing cable net market. Facing the competitive heat in terms of employee and subscriber poaching Hathway Cable is now roping up subscribers offering modem free of rent. Adds Chennai branch manager Ranjith Menon, "More than pricing subscribers look out for post sales service and with our round the clock call centre and online resolution of problems, we will retain our subscriber base." With Internet business becoming more or less like a commodity business, the only differentiating factor is the post sales customer experience, Menon adds. Hathway Cable indeed has an efficient call centre and is backed by prompt service engineers. On the after sales service aspect Chakravarthy remarks, "Our churn ratio is less than two per cent. Presently post sales service is taken care of by the company staff. We are in the process of centralising the call centre operations in Mumbai to be managed by Accenture." Apart from the residential segment, BG Broadband India is looking at small and medium enterprises. "We have control over the infrastructure end to end unlike some of the stand alone ISPs." The company has set up disaster recovery centres in Surat and Mumbai and is targeting software and other companies. Referring to setting up of Internet cafés he adds, "The dynamics has changed send this article to a friend now. So we will look at that at a suitable time." However the company does offer connectivity to individual Internet café operators.

Hathway Rs 750/- pm is not unlimited. There is a limit of 500 MB. This has a 250 MB limit. At least what they told me here in New Delhi.