Thread: Hayai Broadband: How it all began!

Originally Posted by rak007

In Mumbai, where ever the last mile fiber is not available would you still be servicing using Wimax or any other way ?
I mean as i told you before my area is not listed on your website. Assuming fiber is not available, will i still be able to avail your services using an alternate medium ?

As I've mentioned before, just because your exact neighbourhood isn't listed on the website, doesn't mean we won't be providing service - it mostly means that it was not listed in Wikipedias list of Neighbourhoods in Mumbai [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Neighbourhoods_in_Mumbai]Category:Neighbourhoods in Mumbai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]. To avoid confusion, I depreciated that field in favour of listing only the "major" suburbs - in Mumbai, at least. I might end up changing this to an open text field so that I don't have to have them all programmed in, and I can let autofill take care of the rest I have also added a lot more cities to the city list (over 500), so if I have missed anything, please let me know.

To answer the original question, however, assuming that Fibre is not available or even feasible, we will have an alternative medium. At this point, we are considering a new wireless-optical option that should provide up to 622 Mbits for distances up to 4km, meaning we can point this thing at the nearest railway station or our next-nearest enabled area, and it can provide anywhere between 6 and 600-or-so customers in the immediate area, whether it be via Ethernet, Localized Fibre (an isolated loop), WiFi, WiMax or good old 3G-cellular technology.

Given the low cost of using wireless technology by comparison to laying fibre, we think that we would attempt to put this solution in each CHS that needs it, so that each CHS can have 622Mbits available, and we don't even need to put any cables outside the society gates - simply wire the society internally.

The reason we want to use Fibre in most areas is simply because of high bandwidth - we're talking multiples of 10Gbits in every street - high availability and resistance to things like weather (I can't say for sure about the wireless option yet).

So the short answer is: Yes, we will find a way to get you connected - even if we have to use something like WiMax as a temporary solution while fibre is being rolled out.

^^ Thanks for the assurance

By the way any exact / near exact date / month/ period when this service will start available ?

Also what are you planning to do when more and more people get added to your services.
I am asking this because, here all know that whenever a new service (be it anything not just an ISP) comes in particular area, the QoS is very good at the start but tends to deteriorate when more people join the bandwagon. I hope this should not happen with you and the minimum expected QoS should be available at all times (barring instances when circumstances do not permit)

Originally Posted by mgcarley

Weirdly, Pakistan can get a 1Mbits unlimited connection for under INR1000. Even 4Mbits I think is available for a very reasonable price (by comparison). I don't know if it's any good, but it's there.

Even wierder is they dont appear to have a national IX :S

Which means no NIXI charge like here but then surely it has to increase the cost otherwise.

Originally Posted by rak007

^^ Thanks for the assurance

By the way any exact / near exact date / month/ period when this service will start available ?

Expecting to pilot in Q4 2009.

Originally Posted by rak007

Also what are you planning to do when more and more people get added to your services.
I am asking this because, here all know that whenever a new service (be it anything not just an ISP) comes in particular area, the QoS is very good at the start but tends to deteriorate when more people join the bandwagon. I hope this should not happen with you and the minimum expected QoS should be available at all times (barring instances when circumstances do not permit)

I'm aware of this, which is one of the reasons we would be building the network to fit our requirements rather than just plonking down cables in certain streets and hoping for the best... I discovered last night that I can't even get Hathway cable at my place, yet my friends in the next street can. I can't get Airtel either. My option, apparently, is Tata. Which I'm not happy about. Why couldn't Airtel just lease the copper from MTNL/whoever serves my building? Quality of Service? Hm. What does that say about MTNL/whoever then?

If we notice a particular area has particularly heavy traffic (over 80% utilization), we'll either throw more bandwidth at it or... throw more bandwidth at it - because it probably indicates significant customer demand.

Originally Posted by blr_p

Even wierder is they dont appear to have a national IX :S

Which means no NIXI charge like here but then surely it has to increase the cost otherwise.

I would hazard to guess that a lot of Pakistani content is hosted in that country itself. I would also hazard to guess that some (relatively popular) sites are blocked. Maybe Pakistani ISPs just under-deliver on their promises of speed: who knows.

It seems like so long ago that I was able to start a movie download, make a cup of coffee and begin watching. Or when I was able to stream episodes of TV programs from Guba.com, Veoh.com and Youtube - while downloading the latest editions of LinkTV and TEDTalks in Miro (Miro | Video Player | Free video and audio podcast player and torrent client.).

^^ with their outrageously expensive 3G plans they are bound to not get customers to avail the 3G services.

Originally Posted by mgcarley

It seems like so long ago that I was able to start a movie download, make a cup of coffee and begin watching.

Imagine watching an ad, in India that made such an outlandish claim

Thats really what your proposed service is, in short. Its not torrent friendly as the price might make it not worth it but for direct downloads there wont be much competition.

Airtel did come out with a similar ad earlier but the prices they were asking made it more an insult than something interesting.

Anyway, will go to town more on whats good or not once you update us on prices tomorrow

Originally Posted by admin

in case you have not heard/read about it... mtnl and bsnl babus threaten to go on strike everytime the government talks about renting the network (established by public money) to private companies.

aka, the COMMIE effect ..then again they have had a reversal in the last election so will the same hold true now ?

The other point that came to mind is turf.

Mumbai is carved out and the players have to respect each others turf.