SexyGurl

btw.. since you enlightened me with the concept of Native Boot Media .... I recall there were 7 or 8 such media options. I could post all those options here tomorrow ( or if possible by evening today). But getting the driver of the serial port into the laptop, is what's really troubling me right now.

Floppy disk is not working (I mean not working from the native boot media). -- as expected, the floppy disk is also recognized from the serial port (using the 25 pin connector). I have tried a bootable floppy at that serial port. No use. The laptop has a an ethernet card (I bought this laptop from my company) .. but have lost the connector which connected the ethernet card to the RJ-45 (The regular ethernet cable fit into that small connector). So, that option is also gone. (Though, I still wonder, how with Ethernet work, even if I had the connector ... because the ethernet is also not a listed native boot media). There are no ethernet drivers right now on the laptop. USB option is surely giving me some hope. To the best of my memory, I recall that USB was listed as a native boot media (in the setup). The problem with that is I don't have a flash card (or any media, which I could plug into the USB). Hope some reasonably sophisticated computer repair shop may be able to help me there. If the USB works out ... my next prob. would be how to get the External CD driver and load it into the laptop (using flash) ... I am a real sick guy, didn't bother to collect the Dell CDs, when buying the laptop. I have to hope, some one has the CDs for Dell latitude CPx. Alas, I'm in Delhi ! .... a series of bad things happening. F*k, why don't they make the serial port a native boot media? Anyway, thanks for the knowledge update ... (and if you have any further comments, I'm really thankful). I plans to speak to the Dell engineer to sometimes come to office. Let's see, if he could be of any help. Helpdesk engineers have been no help thus far.

I chanced to open this message .... god ! - never knew we have near-einsteins in here. (I wish I were one too, though) !

Yes, it looks to me that the plan 700 is under threat. It's either foolishness or bribes at work. Bharti (i.e. Airtel) is the biggest gainer if this happens.

Wishlist: 1. free PORN (or atleast under the Membership menu) ... I'd rather not specify the types of PORN, I am interested in, here. (just that ... it'd sound unparliamentary, at rimweb. No?) 2. More free (or membership) videos. 3. Membership based mobile-email. (could be reliance proprietary). 4. More free / membership videos (and songs). I'm ok, if nasty ad pop-ups to keep popping out. Or they could ask us to type: "I solemnly pledge to buy the xxx brand refrigerator" and click Ok .... before access to free PORN is allowed. Or they could ask us to type 10 times: "Anil Ambani is better than Mukesh" .... and get free access to All "E" applications.

Government of India will beat sh*t out of poor Lil Ambani if he dreams of selling Reliance Telecom to a Chinese Company !!! Chinese company operating mobile services in Assam and North-East China is just playing games ... pretending "we're innocent MNC investors", "believe in free flow of capital" .. bla bla. No wonder you don't find Dear Chinese companies not investing in Highway Projects (Goldern Quadrilateral), in the Power Sector. They have nil strategic advantage (infact, loss .... since they'd be spending money building roads for India .... producing electricity for India). Telecom .... eh? Sinister objectives are quite obvious !

which part of india are you in?

They should make R-world compulsory for all high-end handsets. And try to get a plain vanilla set, which can be sold under Rs. 1000 per set.

It's quite right ... Hutch has been very very strong on Advertising ... RIC is in an altogether different world .. way below Hutch

I don't think RIC is suffering from any serious bad debts, as of now. It's balance sheet looks quite clean to me. (And anyway, RIC's bad debts were only due to bills not paid .... RIC did not pick the handset costs for Monsoon Hungama). And even considering the impact of Monsoon Hungama on entire Reliance group --> Near end of last year, it was reported that Reliance spent Rs. 3500 crores in all on the Monsoon Hungama (handset leases). Out of that it has already recoverd Rs. 2000 crores, as of end of last year (calendar year). The numbers sound plausible to me --> Near about 1.5 to 2 million phones were sold under the 501 scheme: (1st July, 2003, Reliance subscribers = 1.8 million. That's when monsoon hungama was launched. All these 1.8 million were mostly DAPO (or Budget 149 & 249 but with 3300 downpayment for handset). Monsoon hungama expired in Dec 2003, with reliance having nearly 5 million subscribers, but only 2 million took the 501 option .. the rest picked up other schemes, inspite of 501 being available. Cost to reliance for an LG2030 would be about Rs. 2500 per piece -- given the retail price of LG2030, after prepaid was launched. So, 3500 crores total cost of handset is not too out of the world. Actually realizing Rs. 2000 crores is again not too out of the world ... a lot of monsoon hungama, converted to prepaid, after paying Rs. 200/- per month for about 10 or 12 months. So, each ending up paying nearly 2500 for the hand set). Then, reliance is still collecting Rs. 200/- per month for the handset from those who continued postpaid (inspite of the offer to convert to prepaid). So, that would go towards recovering a good part of the outstanding 1500 crores. Maybe overall, they will escape with about 500 crores loss in all on account of Monsoon Hungama ... a rather Tiny sum, given what Monsoon Hungama gave to Reliance Info. The stated numbers of Reliance Info, or the associate companies which supported the Monsoon Hungama .. look clean to me. Their main problem is the revenues. But Rs. 5500 crore for this year is completely out of line ... Their last year revenues were 5400 crores (see RIL Annual Statement for last year). 60% growth in the year is a given .... but they could do far better. A reasonable expectation for this year's revenues lies between 8000 - 9000 crores. A 1000 crore profit-after-tax is tough but achievable. about 600 or 700 crore is more in the likely range. And 100 crore is completely out of the way ... too small. But Anil's abilities will be quite in question, if he ends up with just 600 or 700 crore PAT this year. And not only that, Infocomm ability to expand will be seriously checked if it's not moving into the 1000 crore plus range, this year. Quite understandably, they are not reducing tariffs ... esp. when there seems a pressing need in the market, to reduce both STD and R-connect rates drastically. But then, their subscribers additions continue to trail Bharti (i.e. Airtel) ... and Hutch pushing head up, during the last two months (they were pretty dead ...that Hutch ... for the first half of this year, though).

Lil Ambani needs much more money than a Lil money. He must be hoping Infocomm gets him Rs. 1000 crore in profits this year. In Q405 (i.e. last quarter of 2004-05), it earned Rs. THREE CRORE in net profit [net of extra-ordinary items] Bharti did earn over 1000 crores, last year (Rs. 1223 crores, to be precise). I'll be surprised if they don't cross 2000 crores this year .... with the telecom market just zooming ... and Bharti doing exceptionally well. Unfortunately, infocomm being a privately held company ... we may never get to see it's financials, this year.

He can't give up the ownership of RTL (unless he sells to an Indian owner). FDI in telecom is rightnow restricted to 49% ... so that as much he can sell to the Russian company. I think he could postion RTL and RIM as different pricing points in the market .... essentially use the RTL to beat the GSM competition on pricing, while RIM continues to be a national brand. Another lollipop he could offer is free RIM-RTL (i guess, he's already doing that).

Airtel has been something too smart (!). Something secret ? They're marching ahead quite powerfully in the mobile segment atleast. + Sunil Mittal seems to have learnt the political game from Reliance. Reliance's entire FWP business is looming under a big threat (Dayanidhi Maran's generosity to Sunil Miital .... or well, it's more likely to be Sunil Mittal's "generosity" to Dayanidhi Maran -- see the DoT diktat on FWP services of Reliance and Tata)

There are many rules of thumb. One of them states: Where there is money, there are mother f*kkers. A second one states: Evaluate any financial proposition, like a mother f*kker would. Here we go: 20 states - sure. Even if my arithmetic is poor enough to count upto 20, I do hear that India has more than 20 states. But for the purpose of analysis, I would prefer to call these as 20 telecom circles. 20 districts (PER CIRCLE): Merlin's Beard Every telecom circle doesn't have 20 districts under it. eg. for the Delhi Circle -- I'd call it just one district .... or at most 4 districts, if I count NCR towns separately. Similarly for a circle like Maharashtra: 20 districts possible, but something like Sholapur, Sangli etc. would count as 1 district. 10 cities (PER DISTICT): C'mon an a$$hole on the street will laugh, if there are 10 different cities within New Delhi. The same a$$hole will die out of laughter, if you say, Sholapur or Sangli districts have 10 cities within them. 100 entries (PER CITY): Here the argument breaks. It could actually be higher than 100 or lower .... depending on how the city is defined. In any case, the validity of 100 entries per city ... is not empirically verifiable. WOW HOW WOW ! BOOPS ... So, deep an analysis and we end up inconclusive, with egg in our hand. How I wish, the guy who put the numbers was bold enough to expect 1 lac entries per "city". Unfortunately no. He was intent on ensuring that our neat analysis gets nowhere. Anyway, let's try another approach. KBC2 gets SMSes only from the airtel holders: who number 12.7 million all over India. Assuming 20 circles, it has 12.7 million / 20 = 6.3 lac subscribers per circle (on average). Assuming (as stated), each circle is deemed to have 20 districts, each district has: 6.3 lac/20 = 32,000 subscribers. Again (as stated), each district is deemed to have 10 cities (funny, but let's stick to the definition that 1/10th of a district is called a "city"): Each "city" has 3200 subscribers. Ok .... now the analysis can proceed: will KBC2 generate 100 SMSes from every 3200 subscribers? That 1 out of every 32 subscribers of Airtel, must send an SMS (not just watch KBC). In other words, 3% of all airtel subscribers MUST not only watch KBC but actually send an SMS. How many of airtel subscribers must watch KBC2 --- Anyway, these numbers don't really look bizarre enough .. to make a sensible person laugh to death ... .but it's surely a big deal. So, 24 lacs per KBC2 show .... sounds awkward. But really, I won't think any of you would bet your life on it, on the impossiblity of it happening. In any case, if generating 24 lacs was such big deal, Sunil Mittal would contribute 24 lacs from his own pocket .... as a one time generosity. Now the next part was .... Increasing this 24 lacs revenue even further, by expecting more SMSes. 1000 SMS per "city". --- You convert it into 2.4 crores. But you need 30% of Airtel's subscribers base to ACTUALLY send an SMS. F**K you .... I don't buy the argument that 30% of airtel subscribers will send an SMS to KBC2. But even if 2.4 crores was to be generated by SMSes ... 2 crore is given away in prize money. Practically all gone. And the Ad revenue will just pay the production costs of KBC2 ... just like any other TV episode will cost (i.e. any other TV episode, with no 2 crore give-away). Though, in this case KBC2 needs to pay a hefty fee to Amitabh Bacchan .. .so AD money, better be good enough. I don't under-estimate Amitabh Bachhan ability to attract Ad money for KBC2. Ad money should be sufficient to pay AB's cost .... and a small profit margin for STAR. So, where are the big (abnormal) bucks. The analysis proves that this is too normal financially. Nothing too out of the world. Anyway finally, the annual analysis: It's simply wrong arithmetic .... check the numbers. 576000 crores .. is an arithmetically incorrect calculation. If SMS revenue is 24 lacs i.e. 0.24 crores per episode: Annual SMS revenue is-- 0.24* (5 * 4)(episodes/month) * 12 = 57.6 crores. Just 57 crore rupees of SMS revenue for running KBC2 for all year !!! And 240 episodes of KBC2 will need to give 480 crores as prize money. STUPID .... what's the fun. STAR would stop the show, if the Ad money is not large enough to pay for the prize money and Amitabh's fee. SMS revenues are paltry. Here we go, generating another thumb rule: You don't go door to door collecting people's p(i)ss, to solve the problem of water scarcity !!!

Why don't you pick LG 5130 for Rs. 3799 ... though about 800 bucks more than your budget (if that could work). It color and has speaker phone. Makes a lot of sense, if you use R-world. If you don't use R-world ... I'd suggest 1999 rupee model (LG .. something) .... atleast I like the looks of that 1999 model. ------------------------------- Second hand sets are available dirt cheap (I hear so, but don't ask me where to find them). 5130 - 1700 bucks lg2030 .. 1100 samsung slim - 800 !!!

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Anyone please HELP !!! HELP !!! I need a GMAIL account ... How do I get one? Can any of you help?

Yeah, Rs. 35 was just an example. If the revenue share % for ADC is not 5%, but 20% .. the same logic works .. but for a higher amount. For a revenue of Rs. 700, ADC payable by reliance would be Rs. 140/- .. so it'll simply pass the higher charge to customers: 700 + 140 (+10% service charge=84) = about Rs. 950 prepaid card for RIM (as compared to 770 for RIP). I will be very surprised if ADC revenue share is more than 20% !!! whenever (& if) it comes

Sirs, Sirs .... look at it from shrewd financial angle, and you would immediately note the difference between a per minute ADC and a revenue share ADC. Why is reliance not offering unlimited Rim-2-Rim STD right now on RIM? Because ADC is per minute. Therefore a 770 voucher for unlimited STD is not possible: Reason- You pay reliance only 770. Reliance needs pay BSNL 30 paise per minute of STD you call (even for STD to another RIM). So, if you were to use (say) 400 minutes on rim-std ... reliance would still need to count the minutes and pay 400x0.3=120 rupees to BSNL. If someone were to use (say) 2400 minutes ... 720 RUPEES !!!!! entire receipt of reliance is wiped out !!! So, for RIM, is not possible, under a per minute ADC. Why it works for RIP -- because even if someone calls 2400 minutes of rim-std... ADC is still Rs. 720 ... but reliance keeps it with itself. (So, you call 400 minutes or 2400 .. doesn't matter monetarily to reliance on account of ADC). How would a revenue share based ADC "enable" unlimited Rim-2-Rim? If reliance sells a 700 card (without service charge) ... and ADC is fixed at (say) 5% .... revenue share ADC means, reliance pays only Rs. 35 ADC to BSNL (IRRESPECTIVE OF THE NO. OF MINUTES OF STD, THE CUSTOMER CALLS). So, you call 400 minutes or 2400 minutes .. the ADC paid by reliance to BSNL (on account of you) ... will only be Rs. 35/-. Now there's a solution ... simply charge your 700+35+(service charge on 735 = about 73.5) ... So, at 5% revenue ADC, an unlimited rim-std is saleable for about Rs. 800 .. Got it? The biggest question: Why is Reliance the biggest gainer, if revenue ADC is introduced? Answer is simple: The 80,000 kms. of optic fiber backbone !!! All laid out across India ... and only a fraction of it's capacity being used. It does not cost reliance even 1 additional paisa to take your voice call from delhi to mumbai.... The capacity of optic fiber is SO HUUUUUGE .... there is no f*kking way to fill it up in toto. ALL 1 BILLION Indians can keep shouting into their phones .... and that kind of capacity in the optic fiber will take it, without noticing. It's a TERABIT network. (By the way ... the reason for creating that huge capacity was for heavy bandwidth guzzling uses .. Video-on-demand at DVD quality .. simply demands a huge bandwidth .... if 20 users are watching a movie from internet ... the movie is sent over the network in 20 copies .... you can calculate the bandwidth needed at level of the fiber backbone). Voice traffic is puny in size for terabit capacity fiber backbone. Anyway, back to our point: So, who loses? All other operators ... none has the capacity in place to support unlimited shouting by 1 Billion Indians. (BSNL is the only exception .. .it has something like 150,000 kms of optic fiber ... but one, the capacity of the fiber is less than reliance's. Two, a huge amount of that capacity is already leased to other telecom operators .. .hutch, tata, idea .. and to airtel, where it's own fiber is not available + BSNL capacity is also sold to corporate lease lines). No other operator (except reliance) , can support an unlimited STD, even after a Revenue share based ADC. Implication --> An unsymmetric competitive advantage for reliance. It could start collecting 800 rupees from people (by giving unlimited std benefit, sure), but incurring NO COST to itself !!!! And competition is in no position to match it. A second but related issue is the local loop ... because to carry the unlimited STD, not only the fiber optic is needed .. but also those CDMA towers, which connect the wireless phone to the fiber backbone. But then intra-circle unlimited calls are easily being supported by the same towers.... I don't know how much capacity on that local loop front is filled up (because of 440 type cards) ... but in general, CDMA is cheaper on a per line of local loop provided -- one tower can handle about 6 times the subscribers handled by a GSM tower, though cost of CDMA tower is just about double. Looks like the current CDMA towers of reliance have reasonable capacity to pick-up more minutes. So, unlimited STD looks like a viable proposition .. but just for reliance. The only roadblock is the per-minute ADC.

Unlimited RIM-2-RIM all over India is surely going to come. Big question is the price ! For Unlimited STD on FWP ... it costs 770 per month. 1. Either they will drop the rates on the FWP unlimited STD to say 600 or 660 per month ... .and introduce a 770 p.m. voucher for RIM. 2. Else (if they are really grrrreedy), they'll retain the 770 for FWP, but introduce a 880 or 990 unlimited STD for RIM. I think the 1. will work far better, even for reliance ..... Unlimited STD on RIM is going to be a killer.

No, they don't have. But I think ambani's (i.e. reliance) have so far done a very good job with infocomm. Without Infocomm, hutch and airtel would've ****ed us dry. Entry of Infocomm was easily a game-changer for Indian telecom industry. And despite R-connect .... I don't buy the argument that Infocomm has been ripping the customers. (The success of infocomm has lied in reliance's ability to manage such a gigantic thing and make the monster work ... .at a fabulous price and in great timelines). There is even right now, no match for reliance in voice services. But more importantly, it was stick from reliance which brought sense to the GSM operators.

hehe .. benefits of india-one plan !!! wait till you get it. The cheap tariffs for mobile India are atleast 90% because of reliance infocomm. I would tend to give the rest 10% benefit to be shared between Vajpayee, Arun Shourie and Pradeep Baijal. Maran has hardly done anything positive ... even the Maha-mumbai thing .. I would tend to weigh it in terms of how much it has stengthened the industry (rather than short-term tariff relief). If the industry goes financially weak ... .tariffs will easily go up, back again. I don't know if Maha-mumbai thing has had marked improvement in mobile sales in the region? -- nothing is stated in the press, atleast. Be sure, customers don't win alone.... it has to be win-win for the industry and customers. Low tariff-higher base and higher revenues is what should be the target. Maha-mumbai was hardly a shattering event in that context. Compare this to the impact from entry of infocomm. Tariffs nosedived and subscriber base shot up. Second impact .... slashing of prepaid tariffs and sub-330 vouchers by reliance (and the 440 unlimited voucher) ... huge impact-> tariffs lower, base higher. Again a win-win. If India-one plan means low-STD but higher Local rates .... I don't think I can support it or that I look forward to it.

People who buy 1 lac rupee pc .. and ah, 100% of their brain ... generally don't waste their time, posting messages on rimweb. Very likely, a lot of such people may not be aware, what service provider they are using ... it's their staff which takes care. (And the staff ensures, they don't provide their masters a lousy slow-speed dial up .... it would be mostly dedicated corporate lines at T1 speeds) Ramchi .. if you are using a 100,000 rupee pc and take mobile phones all around the globe, and then talk about Rs. 250 airtel or Rs. 1500 r-connect .... Go get a life. 100% of your brain and more importantly your life, is not worth the cribbing.

I think the biggest reason, why reliance is not reducing R-connect tariffs is that they are simply not targeting the mass market for r-connect (... as against the rim prepaid, where mass market is the prime target with 149 and 199 vouchers). The reasoning probably is that for using R-connect, you must buy a PC ... atleast 15,000 bucks (don't start shouting HCL's 10,000 ruppee pc ... it has it's lacunae). And even 10,000 is not a small amount for the mass market. --- So, reliance has it .. if you can spend 15000 (or much more) for buying a PC, u sure have the money to pay good for R-connect. Unfortunately there is no way to use R-connect without owning a PC ! -- that changes the target market entirely. Hence the pricing, which is not governed by the cost of providing the serivice, but the ability of the customer to pay. For those people, who are interested in getting a limited-data prepaid R-connect voucher for 200 or so ... it's better to use the local internet cafe for checking emails. R-connect is for those who can afford to buy a PC ... .and would like to .... well, watch "pondy" at night !!! (baastards).

Dayanidhi Maran is practical a$$ hole. Many of you would laugh at this .. but my respect for Laloo Prasad Yadav has increased considerably (... atleast he's much much better than Ram vilas paswan and the a$$ hole mentioned above). Lalloo ... may speak like he does .... but he's been a far better railway minister (see some of the latest railway ads in newspapers).