Jul 21, 2005

Life goes on...

It's been some time and I still haven't managed to find a place to live. It's not that there is a severe lack of housing this side of the universe. However, at this point in life I think I can afford to be a bit picky about where I live. One estate agent showed me a place that was dank and dark and seemed very dirty besides. Uneven flooring, small cupboards, dirty kitchen. And he quoted the normal rates for a posh flat.

So all said and done, I'm looking at the outskirts of the city, where there are decent apartments to be found, with electricity backup via a generator, RO water (that's reverse osmosis water treatment plant, for those back home), lawns in the front; all the works.

The broadband connection comes much later, though it does seem that there are some smaller operators out here, some who even offer WiFi connections (though I don't even want to think about the price for that one). As for Veera's comment - it's not the lack of operators that is the problem. It's the cost/benefit ratio that I'm concerned about. I just don't think it's affordable to pay a thousand bucks for a limited connection. I don't want to think twice before letting my OS updates go through or before downloading a demo for the game I want to buy. A 400-500MB limit just doesn't cut it.

Jul 8, 2005

Broadband

I'm out searching for a good broadband provider. So was one of my friends, he finally decided upon AirTel. It's been some days since he applied, but they are tardy, dare I say as usual. One would think they didn't want his business. From the reviews I have read, I've come to believe that MTNL and BSNL, the state players, might be the better options after all. Does it mean that private players entering the market is good? It does seem to have had a bettering effect on the government players who have to compete with the new folks.

My own hunting around indicates that the tariff plans that all these companies have are expensive. So far my company used to reimburse me for the broadband access, so I didn't worry about it so much. But now, having to pay almost a thousand bucks per month... I wouldn't mind it so much if the speed and quality of service was good and if there were no caps on the data transfer. I would pay, I think, a thousand bucks for 512kbps (not UP TO 512kbps, which is a term that all these companies are fond of using), uncapped, or capped to a high number like 75GB.