Indian Telecom Folder

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 06 Nov 2008 17:40

because of ample warning about such things from BRFites, dileep it was I think I got my own modem. performing well in always-on mode.

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 06 Nov 2008 19:00

Recent users get an Indian made modem. Yes, this is not a fairy tale. First time I heard of some such product having something other than 'Made in China' tag.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Nov 2008 08:29

beetel? my beetel 220 from airtel or the line itself has been very unstable lately.
goes down and renegoitates every 2 mins. bearable for BR but a killer for vpn.

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 07 Nov 2008 08:31

Better to get a DLINK one, pref. one without wireless. Those are the most stable and secure as well.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Nov 2008 08:58

so if I login to my beetal, copy its settings on paper and apply that to a retail
dlink it will seamlessly work?

agreed that dlink is the best of the crop at present. even their wireless boxes
are quite good.

vina · Post by **vina** » 07 Nov 2008 09:09

Singha wrote:beetel? my beetel 220 from airtel or the line itself has been very unstable lately.
goes down and renegoitates every 2 mins. bearable for BR but a killer for vpn.

That is the USB /software modem isn't it, where like a Win Modem, much of the actual lifting is handed off to the computer instead of putting circuits on the modem ? It is a small box with a read LED, if I remember correctly. Frankly, that is junk. That was what Airtel gave me when they gave me a connection. When I bought a desktop and put linux on it , I called them and told them that I need a model with wireless and no sir a USB modem wont do and I need an ethernet interface. I bought the Beetel 440TX1, which is a "true" modem with a wireless router built in and can four ehternet ports.. and I think can hand around 8 wireless . It is has been great and very stable.

Get rid of that USB junk. However, I dont think Airtel will be giving you the 440 TX1 for free. I think I paid Rs 2200 for it..orders of magnitude cheaper than a Linksys or DLink and other stuff out there.

And the wireless had all the security features, including MAC based filtering that we were discussing in BR. Implemented all that.

jamwal · Post by **jamwal** » 07 Nov 2008 10:32

Sachin wrote:
jamwal wrote:Private firms are a bit better only because people in sales have pressure to perform. These guys will twist any rule to keepup sales.
I have observed one thing in Bangalore. Calls to BSNL mobile phones are not going through (when calling from the private cell phone services). "I am sorry, this is an invalid number" seems to be their favourite message. And the same number (BSNL one) can be reached from a calling booth, a normal land line and from another BSNL mobile. Don't know the technicalities, but I get a feeling that this is another shady practise employeed by the private service providers.

Its not very different in Jammu either. There are only 3 operators here including BSNL. Calls to BSNL phones are really difficult during day.
I don't think its a conspiracy though. Your service provider earns money whenever you make a call. They wouldn't block calls just to make a bad impression of BSNL. Also BSNL needs to expand its mobile network really fast. Their expansion plans are long overdue.

One thing BSNL has in its favour is how they've set up exchanges in remote areas. THough the conditions leave a lot to be desired. There are exchanges in tin sheds held in one piece by steel wires, BTS (white cabin near cell phone towers)

manned by a single guy only who multi-tasks as lineman, cleaner and general technician.
Probably this is what BSNL dudes call being overworked.But workload is low in such remote areas and there are enough employees in more populated areas. So their grumblings cannot be taken seriously.
Their fiber network sucks too. Some damage every other day. Even the leased lines don't work properly with a combined downtime of multiple days in a year which is unacceptable in any case.

Talking about modems, Reliance, Airtel usually provide Beetel modems for DSL access. BSNL has been providing ZTE or Huwaei modems. Don't ever accept this Chinese junk. Better off spending a few 100 rs. extra and get one of better quality

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 07 Nov 2008 11:00

Using LAN cable is better than USB. Any modem can be used if settings are known (which is possible by just copying them from existing admin screen). All modems are made in china. My guess even the so-called indian ones get the chips/boards if not the whole thing from PRC. It just makes no sense to manufacture in small quantities that India requires that too with changing technology. So the only way to avoid PRC stuff is to take sanyas

Nayak · Post by **Nayak** » 10 Nov 2008 10:15

Cell firm fined for activating vulgar caller tune on phone

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Citi ... 692701.cms

10 Nov 2008, 0006 hrs IST, Mayank Soni, TNN
Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text:
MUMBAI: The Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum recently fined Vodafone Essar Limited a sum of Rs 20,000 for activating a "cheap and vulgar'' caller tune on lawyer Neena Chakravorty's mobile phone without her consent.

Chakravorty stated that the a caller tune, "Bheegi bheegi raton mein'', was activated on her phone in December 2007, shattering her professional personality as it carried a "nonsense message of love and lust''.

Chakravorty claimed that caller tune had been activated at a time when she was representing actor Sanjay Dutt's wife Rhea Dutt in their divorce proceedings. Chakravorty claimed that she was "utterly embarrassed'' when her clients had to listen to the cheap caller tune which "ruined my reputation''.

Despite several attempts, the service provider's customer care reportedly did not deactivate the caller tune for about two weeks. Chakravorty was advised to send SMS CAN CT to 144 for the cancellation. However, she could not send the SMS as her message box was not functioning properly at that time.

In its defence, Vodafone stated that the caller tunes do not get activated by default. The caller tune got activated on her mobile as she had pressed key no 3 from the option given in the auto-dialler.

The court observed that a practising lawyer would not ask for such a cheap caller tune. Chakravorty sent a legal notice on December 20, 2007, which was admittedly received by Vodafone, but they did not reply to it.

President S P Mahajan of the Consumer Forum observed that if the caller tune was activated on the request of the Chakravorty, then the service provider ought to have sent a reply to the complainant. No reply to the notice meant that the activation of caller tune was not on the request of the consumer.

The forum ruled that there is deficiency in service on part of Vodafone and asked it to pay Rs 20,000 as compensation and Rs 2,000 towards cost of proceedings.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 11 Nov 2008 20:13

India adds record 7.7 mn GSM mobile users in Oct.

India added a record 7.7 million mobile users in October to its GSM-based networks, an industry body said, as operators maintained rapid expansion despite signs of a slowing economy.
Total GSM mobile users at the end of October numbered 241.4 million, up 3.3 per cent from 233.7 million in September, data from the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI), which represents nine telecoms firms, showed on Tuesday.

The October user additions do not include signings by No. 2 operator Reliance Communications, Reliance, which predominantly uses CDMA technology but has some GSM customers, had 56.1 million total wireless users at end-September.

The company releases its monthly additions separately.

Top operator Bharti Airtel added 2.72 million new users in October, taking its total base to 80.2 million, while Vodafone-controlled Vodafone Essar added its highest ever number of new users - 2.1 million to take its base to 56.7 million(It added more then 2 million in a month for the first time).

No. 4 operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd added 669,551 new users to have a base of 39.8 million users, while fifth-ranked Idea Cellular signed up 1.2 million users in October to have a total of 31.6 million.

India is the world's fastest growing market for mobile phone services and the second-largest market for such services after China. Other than the GSM-based telecom users, it also has a substantial number of users using CDMA technology.

Asia's third-largest economy is feeling the effects of global financial turmoil and policy makers are gradually ratcheting down their growth expectations. Many now say economic expansion is likely to slow to 7 per cent in the year to March 2009, from 9 per cent in the previous year.

But analysts and officials from Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications have said demand for telecoms should hold up even if overall economic growth slows.

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 13 Nov 2008 00:16

DoCoMo's $2.7 Billion Investment in India

wasu · Post by **wasu** » 29 Dec 2008 19:53

10M more subs in nov. The numbers keep rolling...

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/tr ... 8no110.pdf

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 30 Dec 2008 01:10

GD,

It should work, but obviously the config screens will be different. Just make sure the new box supports PPPoE/A as applicable, has a stateful firewall, and allows the usual wireless security.

bart · Post by **bart** » 30 Dec 2008 02:02

Singha wrote:beetel? my beetel 220 from airtel or the line itself has been very unstable lately.
goes down and renegoitates every 2 mins. bearable for BR but a killer for vpn.

I think this has more to do with the line than the modem. Get them to check the line throughly.

I had a lot of problems with my Airtel line, and it continued after they had changed the cable pairs all the way to the exchange. Finally after about a month of going back and forth they changed the wiring within my house and it fixed it! It has been extremely stable ever since. So you never know what could be the problem, but it is more likely to be the line. Another thing to keep in mind is that though you may always get the dial tone loud and clear on the phone line, it doesn't necessarily that your data connection will work perfectly - there might still be problems with the data connection.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 02 Jan 2009 00:00

Shades of a scandal

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Jan 2009 08:43

my airtel line is fixed now. very stable vpn conn to office lasting for days.
but my mig21 linksys wifi access pt from 2003 craps out and needs a hard
reboot every hr if I turned on WPA or WEP, so I am settling for MAC filtering onree
at present and hoping that no jihadi wants to drop by my building.
being bad economic times hate to spend 2K on a new wifi AP if I can help it.

vina · Post by **vina** » 02 Jan 2009 09:06

Call Bharti. Their Beetel 440Tx wireless access point & DSL modem is less than Rs 2k I think. Dont leave out WPA and WEP. Any joker in the apartment complex with a wireless card can use your connection, esp if you leave it on for days together.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Jan 2009 09:22

but how does he fake my mac addr easily? if joker is running a virtual machine (where mac's can be user specified) is easy but then he isnt a joker anymore but a serious 'player'

on 2nd thought I better get a new wifi box today...

cheaper than a week in
jail and ATS crawling all over my HDDs and 'leaking' news of its contents to the
media.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 02 Jan 2009 14:51

I think these days multiple layers of measures are a must for WiFi. You must have the following if you use Wifi

WPA2 (not WEP or WPA)
Stateful firewall
Change default admin password
Stop SSID broadcast
MAC filtering
Use static addresses on your LAN, or reduce the DHCP range to be equal to the expected number of devices on your network
If modem allows, start logging and check periodically what is happening
Turn of modem when not in use
Place the modem in center of the house rather than near a window to reduce leaked power

I wish my modem had a button that would turn off the wireless part when I am using it via the wired part...

The above wont prevent all attacks but will make a jehadi look to another AP for getting his kicks.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 02 Jan 2009 15:56

My nephew in Bangalore told me that the DSL/Wifi modem at his friend's home was left in unsecured mode by the SP. He found it out when he booted up his laptop there. No one knew it had a wireless, and it is open. He also shown me that there are plenty of unsecured APs around.

The one at their home is programmed with 56 bits WEP by the SP. The SP doesn't allow the customer to change it. I tried some password combinations without luck on it. Apparently the technician had no clue about the various levels of encryption.

bart · Post by **bart** » 02 Jan 2009 18:21

Things to remember about wireless:

WEP has been cracked for some time now - its pretty much useless as a serious security device. It takes about 5 mins to hack into a WEP connection.

MAC address filtering is useless as it can easily be spoofed.

WPA is more secure, but recently TKIP has been hacked.

All of the above are like the small locks on wooden drawers. Can prevent accidental access or keep out amateurs but if anybody reall wants to hack in, they will.

If planning to use WPA on a personal network, make sure its WPA2 with AES and using strongest possible keys. It is a good practice to turn off your AP when not in use.

In the enterprise use WPA2 with 802.1x and RADIUS-based back end database.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Jan 2009 21:48

Ha! its done. I shut down my linksys and managed to revive my apple airport which has WPA2
and is much faster in performance. also put in the mac addr filter. should keep me out of trouble(I hope). my employer is on wpa not wpa2 and not a whole lot I can do about it. also
stopped the ssid broadcast and restricted the dhcp server.

my PC discovers 4 WEP, 3 WPA and one unsecured network in range. I tried connecting thru
the unsecured one and it sure works great

vipu · Post by **vipu** » 03 Jan 2009 15:45

No Sign of 'slowdown' in Telecom as per TRAI figures... and now reports of big hiring plans (1.5Lac) in Telecom?.

Any chance Telecom might sustain momentum for this year?.

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/tr ... 8no110.pdf

While others worry about the looming recession and job losses, the country’s telecom companies beg to differ. The sector will need up to 1,50,000 additional hands in 2009, according to the hiring consultants.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... 923726.cms

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 04 Jan 2009 07:03

I have not been keeping track of the telecom subscriber number since we overtook USA as the #2 in the list of countries with most telecom subscribers, back when we hit about 270 million subscribers a few months ago. Now (as of November 2008) we have 374.13 million subscribers, with a monthly addition of 9.5-10 million new subscribers. Instead of stalling once the metros were saturated, monthly subscriber growth rate has increased, from 7-8M/month to close to 10M/month now. By end of the current fiscal year on March 31, we'll have >400 million telecom subscribers, given the current growth rate, having added over 100 million new subscribers during the year.

PIB release: Year-end telecom review 2008

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 04 Jan 2009 09:45

I dont think the number of subscribers gives you the right picture. my mom , dad and me each have 2 GSM connections. And i known so many people have two or even 3 of them. Do they do some kind of filtering based on this, also so many connections are discarded now and then, are they also taken into consideration

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 04 Jan 2009 10:02

Multiple lines per person is a common phenomenon and applies to many countries, but I don't know if TRAI data counts multiple lines as multiple subscribers or a single one. Without a single ID number, I suppose not. However, they do discount inactive lines, and just months ago, cut the subscriber count by ~10 million to account for accumulated data on inactive lines.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Jan 2009 13:05

no country discounts multiple accounts per family, least of all the chipanda. so why should we? Russia has more subscribers than it has people, again due to this multiple account thing.

there is a time for Dharma, its not required in the usual course of the war.

vipu · Post by **vipu** » 05 Jan 2009 19:57

Again given the DoT directive to cull invalid IMEI subscribers and the new NIA Ordinances. i gather this will reduce atleast 5% of the Connections.

More interesting is the Entry of new players (Swan and Unitech). expect a Think (j)Hatke! from them as well now that one of them is in in a soup.

Inactive lines are retained by all Telco's since this leads to the Spectrum 'requirements'. Till DTV comes and Defence reallocates to new spectrum. the charade will go on. We are like this only!.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 05 Jan 2009 20:33

hasnt unitech saved itself by selling its license to Telenor of norway for a huge sum? we have real estate types going into telecom, IT services going into real estate....

everyone wants to be a Tata.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 05 Jan 2009 21:30

Unitech needs atleast another 4,000 crores to dig out of the high debt hole they are in.They have already put several of their under construction properties for sale.

R-Com GSM crosses 100,000 users on first day of launch of service in Bombay.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 06 Jan 2009 14:19

Question for the telecom experts here: is the introduction of 3G services in India likely to help broadband penetration at all? Can 3G phones be used as broadband modems for PCs?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Jan 2009 14:31

yes they can be used as bband modems if the handset allows it (apple wont for sure).

my pov is only 3G will push bband strongly in India *if priced at par with wired bband*
with no wired infra to install or maintain, the opex should be cheaper and hassle free.

if handset makers act smart and do not allow a fast USB2 or even power-over-ethernet
type connection, nobody is going to waste $$ on 3G phones.

if such phones dont exist ... we need them - soon!!

but I do know that 3G PCMCIA, USB and expresscards are easily available and you
can buy them from telcos in countries with 3G. but having that facility on handset
itself is cheaper than buying a new card unless its subsidized.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 06 Jan 2009 15:01

I see that phones made by decent companies offer the modem mode for the current GPRS/EDGE. Only evils like the US telcos and iCrap block that. I would expect the same for 3G as well.

The phone makers have nothing to loose by offering it. Since handset and service are de-linked here (A VERY GOOD THING IMO) there is nothing to prevent it.

I had used Airtel edge/phone modem as my backup ISP for long, till Airtel pulled the plug on the Rs1500 per year unlimited scheme. Now I got a reliance datacard.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 06 Jan 2009 15:14

http://www.tataindicombroadband.in/acce ... ost_b.html

A 1 mbps unlimited plan from tata

niran · Post by **niran** » 06 Jan 2009 15:33

This TaTa Broadband show a monthly charges of 2500/mo.
outrageous I would say, here we have 612 bath/mo(689 Rs in real money)
for 2Mbit(unlimited) connection, in-spite of the fact Indian market is 1000 times larger.
methinks folks should start educating Netas for cheaper rate as an Election promise.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 06 Jan 2009 16:08

Thanks Singha and Dileep. Too bad that 3G seems at least several months away, given that the auction hasn't even happened yet.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 08 Jan 2009 03:12

Sometime in the next one week India would pass the 350 Million cell Phone connections mark.

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 12 Jan 2009 00:30

Singha wrote:so if I login to my beetal, copy its settings on paper and apply that to a retail
dlink it will seamlessly work?

agreed that dlink is the best of the crop at present. even their wireless boxes
are quite good.

I actually threw away that junk after couple of months of usage and got a NetGear Router-cum-Modem. Airtel customer care was patient enough to work me through the ADSL settings.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 12 Jan 2009 22:23

India adds 8.12 mln GSM mobile users in Dec.

Looking at the average additions in CDMA numbers it looks like December will set a record for highest additions in a month. (Between 10.75 to 11 Million)

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 14 Jan 2009 17:14

Old news but is likely to be today

Nortel to file for bankruptcy