On 3G, 4G and LTE

Airtel has become the first telecom service provider to launch 4G-LTE services in India.

As expected of any 'early bird', the company has been aggresively promoting this with a tagline - "If your network is faster, we will pay your mobile bills for life.". This, coupled with a free offer to switch to a 4G SIM and avail higher network speeds at 3G rates, has been attracting customers in droves.

The process is quite simple for mobile phones. You just slip in a new SIM, send a text message to designated number and you are hooked to the 4G networks, wherever available. For devices that cannot sent text messages to Airtel (eg. iPads), the activation process takes a couple of hours.

I liked the simplicity of the process. On top of this, the new SIM cards do not have to be clipped to fit into a smartphone or tab. It now comes pre-punched in three sizes - normal, mini and micro. All you need to do is to push out the size that fits your device -- no more of those crude clipping and crimping tools.

Physical processes apart, the Airtel 4G campaign has one glaring omission -- none of the adverts put a number to their claims. Instead of clearly stating that connection speeds are above a certain threshold, they just rely on the general sloth in internet speeds that we have now come to take for granted in India.

So what exactly is '4G speed' supposed to be?

The benchmarks set by UN-ITU clearly states that 4G should have speeds ranging from 100 Mbps to 1Gbps. Actual speeds are anything but dazzling. In the Airtel showroom, the maximum speed I could get was 11 Mbps. Back home, the maxmum speeds dropped to 5Mbps. Then again the 4G connections were tenuous at best. The signals received by the mobiles seemed to keep changing, making the devices switch frequently between 3G and 4G

No wonder the wireless pipedream is also called Long Term Evolution (LTE). We still have a long-long way to go!

Speeds across the Gs (Source - https://sudhakarreddymr.files.wordpress.com) 

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LINKS

* Airtel 4G - http://www.airtel.in/4g/index
* 4G-LTE Status in India - https://www.thehdtimes.com/4g-lte-status-in-india/
* ITU paves way for 4G technologies - http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2010/40.aspx#.Ve3OBhGqqko
* TechAdvisor - difference between 4G and LTE - http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/feature/mobile-phone/whats-difference-between-4g-lte-3605656/

WiFi Internet Connectivity

We just graduated from a dongle to a wifi router.

I must thank BSNL, MTS, Reliance and Tata Docomo for forcing us to take this quantum leap. All four of them have been providing such pathetic internet connectivity in Noida that we never really experienced a broadband internet connection at home, until today.

BSNL had everything going for it. It was the first one to lay down optic cables and hubs in the neighborhood and it was offering the most competitive rates too. Unfortunately they also had a bunch of linemen moulded in the licence-permit Raj. Since they just could not kick the habit of demanding  "baksheesh"from customers, they always ensured that the last-mile connectivity was primed to fail, as frequently as possible.

The telecom corporates fared no better. The slick ad campaigns from Reliance, MTS and Tata Docomo offered high-speed internet of "up to 21 Mbps". In reality this meant that the speeds could be anywhere between 0 Kbps and 450 Kbps, well within their promised range!

Our new service provider, a franchisee for Triple Play, simply promises a download speed and then delivers it. We now have a plan for 4Mbps speed till 25GB for Rs. 800/month. Speedtest has consistently confirmed that - at least so far - they have exceeded promises.

Unlike last time with BSNL, we have picked a wireless router on our own from the online market. A Netgear N150 (JNR1010v2) marked with an MRP of Rs. 1600 was available in Atta Market for Rs. 1200. The same thing is on Snapdeal for Rs. 784!

How on earth do they figure a pricing strategy in a market like this?


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An attempt to make sense of the technical hocus-pocus:

Q. What is the radio frequency used by wifi routers?
A. Usually 2.4 GHz. for a maximum link speed of 150 Mbps. It is interesting to note that 'larger channel widths do not result in higher range, just faster speeds at close range'. So it is just as well that I did not buy a dual antenna N300 model for double the price!
Netgear's classification - details here.

Q. What is an "External 5dBi antenna"?
A. dBi stands for 'decibels relative to isotropic'. It represents  the direction and efficiency (Antenna Gain) with which a transmitter sends signals across distances. More here.

Q. The router conforms to four sets of international standards: Safety, EMC, Radio Spectrum and RoHS. What are these?
A. EMC = Electromagnetic Compatibility (European Standard - EN and International Electrotechnical Commission or IEC);
RoHS = Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive  - also known as the "lead-free directive" it restricts the use of six substances in manufacturing.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* http://www.explainthatstuff.com/wirelessinternet.html

BSNL: Telephones, Broadband and Bribes

A week ago I was pleasantly surprised to see a BSNL employee at our doorstep with a packet in hand. I had applied for a land-line + broadband connection and this 'lineman' had come for the first part: handing over the telephone instrument and activating the physical connection.

Over the past two decades the government-owned telecom company had transformed into a trend-setter when it comes to affordable connections. Spurred by the telecom privatization MTNL/BSNL has seen a huge improvement in its services.

Gone are the days when my grandfather had to write a melodramatic application letter to get a telephone connection in Thrikodithanam. He had to provide good reasons for being granted the privilege of a telephone connection, so he had written a  note about his ailing health, his advanced years and about wanting to keep in touch with  'My son who is in the army posted at Siachin glacier and my grandson serving the Air Force at the Arunachal frontier..'. A few months later a clunky, black bakelite instrument marked 'ITI' was installed with much fanfare.

The instrument I received from BSNL would have amazed my grandfather. It arrived without any special requests and was loaded with features that needed a careful scrutiny of a tiny manual and its miniscule print.

The BSNL lineman, as if to compensate for having exceeded a customer's expectations, went on to crudely pulled together some wires dangling outside the house, borrowed my screwdriver & insulation tape (he believed in travelling light) to fix the wires and, before leaving, insisted on having an "Inaam" (reward / bribe). The minimum amount he assured me, was Rs.100, because, these days, 'even a litre of petrol is so expensive!'.

The broadband guy came a couple of days later with a wireless modem. He was a lot neater and better equipped. He quickly configured the laptop and modem, wrote down detailed troubleshooting notes and left in a hurry, without bothering to even ask for an Inaam.

Obvioulsy, BSNL is an organisation with more than one face. The hoary tradition of seeking bribes is restricted to only the 'linemen' whose expertise lies in creating and maintaining a tangle of wires in every neighborhood. Only they can decipher and pull the right wires out of this tangle and  undertake the task of pulling wires across streets and installing the telephones. Also, By ensuring that the wires are fixed without insulation tapes or covers customers can be then be held on tenterhooks and regularly milked for further Inaams and baksheesh.

BSNL Broadband employees might be the new wave. They are geeks who prefer to buy their own petrol.
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LINKS

A report registered on Janaagraha's IPAB ("I Paid A Bribe"!) - http://ipaidabribe.com/sforms/view_reports_paid