There’s an interesting Malayalam (one of the official languages in India) movie titled “Virus” [1] from 2019, which is set during the time of the 2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala (a state in South India). The disease is deadly and can have longer incubation periods (as stated in other comments here). Wikipedia says the mortality rate is 40-75%.
> In India, every tax imposed on a business goes straight to consumer. The consumer receipt even mentions all those taxes item-wise.
As someone in India, this statement is incorrect. There are no consumer receipts in India that show the import duties (which is what tariffs are) as an amount or as a percentage. There are plenty of goods sold in India that are imported, duty paid, and the costs are passed on to the consumers (with no explicit mention of that in the invoice or receipt).
You may be confusing these US tariffs with local taxes in India like GST. In the US, sales tax is shown in the consumer receipts (if or as applicable in the state, county, city, etc.).
In India and in the US, import duties are not shown in consumer receipts, except in the case where an individual is importing something and is liable to pay the duties and levies directly. Indians would probably revolt if they actually knew how much customs duty they’re paying for all the goods they buy individually.
I was looking at GST and other state taxes etc, that are simply passed to customer. Anyway, the whole point of tax on sales is that, the business would pay the tax out of its pocket without burdening the consumer. But that is blatantly and openly violated.
Sorry to hear this. From where I am (India), there’s hardly anything that you can do because it’s likely that the ones with power won’t do anything. As an individual, you can only focus on yourself and those you know and try to educate them as much as is possible.
These kind of scams have become a huge problem in India (look up “digital arrest” scams). People of all backgrounds and age groups have lost a lot of money (to put it in US dollar equivalent amounts, imagine a person losing few hundred thousand dollars to a couple of million dollars). There is nothing like “digital arrest” in Indian laws. The government has tried to warn people about this.
The larger problem seems to be a combination of factors across disinterested entities:
1. The police aren’t interested in solving these (there’s a separate division for cybercrime). Filing a formal report is usually thwarted and avoided by the police. Even if they show some interest, it always involves paying them fat sums of money. There’s no guarantee that they can recover the money.
2. The banks aren’t interested in solving this. It seems like specific bank branch managers are involved and just stand by allowing large transactions (like cash withdrawals) to just be approved without raising any questions or concerns. All the talk by banks about “risk management” (alongside compliance matters) goes out the window just for the victims of these scams.
3. With SMS OTPs being common and the scammers recruiting some locals to run SIM farms/phone farms, the telecom companies aren’t interested in solving issues within themselves either. Though there is a limit of nine phone numbers (total) per person in India, and though there is on paper a KYC process (including a live video) to get a phone number, the telecom companies have systems and employees who can provide numerous numbers based on stolen or fake IDs.
4. The government is a bystander and appears helpless. Instead of creating laws and enforcing existing laws, it focuses on some awareness that these scams are not genuine.
5. The Supreme Court finally ordered CBI (the Indian equivalent of FBI) to investigate these scams.
So there you have it: none of the entities involved has any interest or will to do something about the problem. There will always be excuses that the scammers are in another country.
> In response, the Wi-Fi Alliance and the DSA are trying to stoke fears that such a move would severely dent Europe's digital development, claiming Wi-Fi is the primary way consumers access the internet and constraining it would impact progress.
Just today, there’s a news report in India where the major telecom companies have lobbied that the entire 6 GHz band be reserved for mobile services and that even part of it shouldn’t be left for unlicensed WiFi. [1]
The problem in India is that the penetration of wired broadband is very low, and the telcos don’t seem to be interested in expanding it as much as they are in grabbing more of wireless spectrum.
I don’t believe it’s a good move to reserve these exclusively for mobile services. We (in general) need more unlicensed spectrum for innovation. Let the companies figure out another way out.
I also know that these bands are already allowed for unlicensed WiFi use in the US.
For better or worse mobile companies will probably make a more efficient use of the space in a country like India at a practical level. I can at least see why you might do this.
I don't know anything really about India's telecoms market, but I know in other 'similar' countries you can buy a mobile phone data plan for like a couple/few dollars a month, but a fixed line is 10X that. You could argue it's not very progressive to reserve the spectrum for the 'rich' who can afford fixed lines.
Few people have phone landlines anymore in India, but wired broadband to the home is not uncommon. It would be annoying to not then be able to have a home WiFi 6G router.
Mobile data is cheap, but broadband is much cheaper.
Given we know 5Ghz can give us like 600Mbps real world on 80Mhz channels, would a fixed line in India typically be above that speed? Is it all GPON these days or still DSL/WISP type stuff?
I'm aware, but, um, without sounding insensitive, not for $50 per sub in hardware cost. Tarana is about 10X that. If you have that kind of money labour is cheap enough to run fibre for the same amount.
The only way that starts to make any sense is if you're doing 128way-256way gpon splits which is not something most are willing to do if they need to make any kind of profit and sell anything more than 100Mbps packages. I wasn't even willing to do 64w splits over 10 years ago now and in hindsight that was wise.
You could go active but then your SFP/SFP+ per port cost eats you up.
For less than 1mil fixed wireless is going to cover 2,800km/sq. You are not going to to get anywhere near that cost trying to do the same thing to 2048(or more) subs in that footprint with fiber. That wouldn't even cover your fiber material cost!
"Mobile doesn't scale in cities" is the exact reason they need 6Ghz (because higher frequencies enable much higher density of cells, reducing terminals per cell). 6Ghz will penetrate buildings terribly, I agree, but it's honestly just not that simple, for example it's now becoming really common for carriers to be doing in building deployments; shopping centres, sports stadiums, the transit network (e.g 4g in the subway) hospitals, the list goes on. Secondly by lifting terminals off of say 800Mhz or 1.8Ghz band and into 6Ghz outside where you can, you free up capacity on those lower frequency bands that do penetrate buildings or reach weird areas like the middle of a park that has tree cover (or whatever).
Wimax hasn't been something anybody I've known in the US has talked about for more than 15 years.
I've built fiber networks and fixed wireless networks. Almost ended up becoming an LTE network as well. It didn't make any sense in any sort of financial modeling, even with spectrum availability.
LTE helps solve "general connectivity". What it does not do is build scalable, reliable, high speed, economical sensitive broadband infrastructure.
It was around that same timeframe that "TV Whitespace" was going to become the next big thing.
Anyway, LTE should be the literal last option. It requires more than 2x as many towers as fixed wireless, with gear more than 20x more expensive. That's also more than 2x-3x the required amount of of battery backup systems, networking equipment, and land / tower leases.
If you have extreme density, you NEED fiber and you need WiFi. You extend from the fiber network with extremely high quality ngFW. To fill gaps, use satellite.
Fiber requires a certain density of subscriber/mile(km), the same as any technology.
Even with 0 labor cost, you still need to get conduit in the ground (materials), fiber, terminations, switching, routing, OLT/ONT cost, handholes, any permitting or utilities location, horizontal boring equipment , jackhammers, splicers, etc. The upfront cost is many, many, many times higher for fiber and if you're okay with your cost-per passing being more than you would ever make on customer ARPU, then sure do that. Even if labor cost was 0. And it will take YEARS longer to deploy and see a return on investment from, of ever.
It doesn't matter if there's broadband to the location if nobody at the location can afford it.
Nowhere with even just an "improved" road (i.e., gravel road, not "only" a path cleared of tall vegetation) is too low density for fiber.
Unless local conditions make you want to use aerial cable, you'll just cable plow a speed pipe and put in a small access riser every 2~3 miles.
You blow the cable in segment-by-segment, either splicing at these locations or spooling the ongoing length up before moving the blower and doing the next segment.
If the cable is damaged you measure with OTDR where the break is, walk there with a shovel, some spare speedpipe, and two speedpipe connectors.
You dig out the damage, cut it out, put good pipe in, join it to the open ends where you cut the damaged section out, and bury it while taking more care to make it last better this time.
You pull/blow out the section of cable and blow in a fresh one, splice it to the existing cable and both ends of the segment, and the connection is fixed.
AFAIK cable plow for fiber in not-very-hard ground is cheaper than planting "telegraph" poles like they did in the old days.
The only expensive parts about fiber optic Internet are the machine that allows you to splice (about 1k$, unlike the 5$ LSA tool for attaching RJ-45 sockets to Cat.5/6/7 cable; this only blocks DIYers from easily doing it) and digging up developed area with more finely controlled tools than a literal plow if you forgot to put in speed pipe the last time the ground was dug up for any infrastructure at all (say, piped water).
Oh, and arguably the optics if you expect to be cheaper than copper on distances within a building at speeds under 10 Gbit/s.
Are we talking about Mumbai or an area w/ 0.2 homes per 10sq km? Because I'm talking about how to do both. Vastly different challenges and economic viability, and I have experience doing both types of environments.
5-6Ghz, certainly, lower frequencies do though. This is why T-mobile offers home broadband using their 5G network (which can support up to 1M devices per square km) in the US; they overbuilt, and have many smaller cells with lots of capacity and are undersubscribed, and monetize the remaining capacity using lowest priority fixed broadband.
One could see India deploying the same density compatible infrastructure in the usual "leapfrog" model of skipping lesser technology implementations in this space.
> mobile companies will probably make a more efficient use of the space
Uh... wat? Something like 70%+ of all internet data anywhere goes over a 2.4GHz wifi for its terminal client, squashed into a paltry 100 MHz of spectrum.
There are surely engineering minutiae arguments to be made for why radios for dedicated bands can be better in some way, or public safety arguments for why unlicensed users need to be segregated from the system that provides emergency service.
But "more efficient use of the space" seems ridiculous on its face.
India has 15% fixed broadband penetration. So let's say you've got a town of 100K households. You can;
A) give the richest 15K of them absolutely no faster WiFi whatsoever because 5GHZ will not be congested at all for them (so there is no problem to solve really)
OR
B) you can have the mobile carrier install a 6Ghz base station on every other telecoms/power pole in town and offer up terabits of mobile data capacity available to everyone throughout the town.
Wi-Fi is not a very efficient way to cover a whole town, due to its inherently low range (at least when involving consumer devices on one end). You'd be spending a lot of resources on base stations that never see any usage.
WiFi literally covers basically all of the urban US already, I'm not understanding this point.
It's true that there's no single service one can sign up for and you have to bounce around cafe and Xfinity and whatever "Free WiFi!" networks are being offered. Which is definitely annoying and it's nice to have a single company sell you service in a neatly packaged "phone" product.
But again, trying to phrase that as a technical point is ridiculous. Free bands are just plain better, technically. You get more data to more people for less money using open spread spectrum protocols than you do with dedicated bands. Period.
I never said anything about free or government-run WiFi, just about auctioning off the spectrum. Companies that build out the infrastructure should be able to charge for access, but they shouldn't be able to prevent others from competing by paying the government for exclusivity. That's a scam.
It's a technical/commercial necessity to have exclusive use over the spectrum in a given area. If you don't believe me why doesn't every city in the world have a paid wifi network? With 5Ghz it should be faster than typical 4G/5G speeds, and it only needs lampost level APs, pretty similar to the microcells that carriers deploy but an order of magnitude cheaper. Instead mobile carriers would rather buy 3 or 6ghz spectrum that only ever gets used in cities anyway, why not wifi in the cities?
ISM is tragedy of the commons; make it free, let anyone do anything and it becomes junk. Carriers need something they have exclusive use of.
ISM is thriving, the only tragedy is that carriers haven't figured out how to charge rents on it and that's a tragedy for them, it's a spectacular success for everyone using it for free.
Carriers don't need 6GHz for backhaul. They have fiber and cable and (other) microwave. Not to mention the ability to shape their own links with antennas and beam forming and do a good job of it rather than a "default job." What they don't have -- and shouldn't be given under any circumstances -- is the excuse to build a moat in the bustling public park.
At the very least, I don't see a need to grant exclusivity across an entire country. e.g. from my home, I can see 5 wifi networks including mine. Of those, only 1 other than mine has a 5GHz signal that reaches me, and everything other than mine is in the -80 to -95 dBm range. There's simply no need to reserve short-range signals in the suburbs in the way that there is for block of giant apartment buildings each with 100s of networks on top of each other.
On top of that, mobile data is quite expensive in the US, so the only time I have data when out and about is... when I'm on free public wifi networks (which is most of the time). So I don't see much reason to give more of a monopoly to mobile providers. I honestly don't even see a use-case for cell service outside of super rural areas; the only reason I even have it is because it's necessary for MFA. Cell providers are legacy tech as far as cities are concerned IMO.
To me it'd make way more sense to me to let wifi have more bands with stricter limits on power levels, and any exclusivity should be to municipalities who can contract with companies to build and manage their infrastructure.
I certainly agree about regional licensing. I think the best scenario would actually be to allow some for WiFi and some for carriers, especially since selling licenses is a two way door in a way that ISM isn't.
> QR Code base system is slow, have security risk and will not work without smartphone.
Proliferation of hundred of QR Code based payments system is not a good thing, you need one that works across all countries.
Agree on some security risks. But the cost of creating, printing or sharing a QR code is very low compared to NFC hardware cost and availability. I don’t know what you mean by slow, because it takes about 10 seconds to complete a transaction. QR codes are quite common in cities and towns in India because of this reason (and the other is that Apple, though a tiny player in the market, hasn’t opened up NFC completely for others to use). You can pay another person or a merchant by scanning a QR code on a cheap Android phone. You can pay for a metro or bus ticket by scanning a QR code. You’d likely see restaurants having a QR code for menus instead of paper menus, and many more.
Even in India, a large country where Apple has a growing manufacturing presence, Apple Maps is totally neglected. It cannot find many places in major cities. It just does not have any transit directions in major cities. It’s at least 10 years behind Google Maps (which updates very quickly to changes, even though it’s not perfect). Apple just does not care much about countries other than the US and a few others when it comes to maps.
I don’t like this direction that Apple has taken over the last several years that it needs to provide more services and that all its services need to be monetized with an aim of a 70% plus profit margin. This greed to capture every penny is creating poorer and worse experiences for users of its platforms.
As for ads on Apple Maps itself, it may generate some revenue in the US and a few other countries. Elsewhere (like in India and many other countries), Apple has practically neglected Apple Maps and it sucks terribly even in large cities. Google, with all its tracking and other issues (including map accuracy issues), keeps moving at breakneck speed on Google Maps.
Apple’s single minded focus on the US with severe lethargy in other countries is why in most countries where (some/many) people use Apple devices, they use Google’s services. Both Eddy Cue and Tim Cook are squarely to be blamed for this greed, laziness and lack of vision or strategy.
This is the real issue.
Before they can think about putting Ads, they should try to make a competitive product.
I used to use Apple Maps but I just don't bother anymore. It's alright for navigation but pretty bad for discovery and finding stuff.
In France it's just so much worse that it is a bit of a joke. When you search for stuff, not only is the information not necessarily correct but the way the information is displayed is not as good/useful and feels extremely neutered like an asepticized listing with no qualities. There are rarely pictures (both outside/inside), opening hours and distance are poorly displayed (when they exist in the first place) and functionally it is harder to use.
The whole thing reeks of rigid/psychotic thinking. It feels like a bureaucrat was tasked to fill in a form and he is not doing it with much enthusiasm.
Apple was supposedly the company for creatives, yet most of their software feels like you are operating in some modernized version of a Soviet system. It's not beautiful, it's barely functional and it's inefficient. They spend a ton of space on oversized UI buttons and useless informations that has to fit in dedicated box without overflowing.
Apple Maps is the perfect example of how bad Apple has become and their inability to build software for the most common use case of today's computing devices: organizing and accessing information.
Google is winning not just because of the monopoly; they became monopoly because the competitors got complacent and Apple is one of the few who could truly compete, yet they refuse to do so.
Considering money isn't the problem, puttings Ads to get more money will only make thing worse.
I was looking through the comments here for something like this. Additional context for others here: Amazon in India is legally allowed only to operate a marketplace. It is not allowed to stock and sell products by itself (it does FBA, i.e., Fulfilled by Amazon for warehousing and delivering products by third party sellers).
Amazon in India has been close to perfect on customer service. I have had issues, but it’s still easier to contact customer service on chat or have them call me (both modes have become a little more difficult to access with the stupid chat bot responding and not helping). Anytime there’s a defective item that needs to be returned for refund or replaced, it’s been very quick.
Lately though, I’ve made it a habit of shooting unboxing videos and photos of the delivered package so that I have clear evidence on any wrongdoing by anyone in Amazon. For larger appliances and such, I’d still prefer a local brick and mortar store.
On the other hand, Flipkart, which is Amazon’s primary competitor, has worse prices on many items of interest to me, does not really offer fast shipping like Amazon does, has only a phone number to contact customer service (and that’s pretty useless), doesn’t have a simple way to get returns or replacements done, has a really stupid and useless “SuperCoins” rewards scheme, and more. It’s a wonder that Walmart is still an investor and owner in Flipkart and hasn’t sold it off and salvaged itself.
I do believe that Amazon’s service in India has deteriorated over the last couple of years or so. Don’t know if management doesn’t care as much or what’s happening within.
> Why would a justice in India serve the interests of a few rich foreign companies, while ignoring the needs of Indian students and researchers?
Because they’re used to serving the interests of large companies (domestic and international) as well as bowing to any executive comments or opinions. Indian judges rule first with their own opinions and moral views, then maybe look at the law, and then maybe consider the constitution (in that order).
As the article notes, people will just use a VPN or Tor to access the sites. The courts in India do not understand technology (like in many other countries). They just acquiesce to the demands from large companies.
With the indirect pressure through US tariffs, I wouldn’t rule out the executive finding ways to not annoy the US even more through some means.
I have a longstanding pet peeve with it (the judiciary): the entire validity and legality of the Aadhaar biometric identity program has been in limbo, pending hearing by a constitutional bench (the conclusion of “Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank”). This bench hasn’t been constituted for several years. Chief Justice after Chief Justice in the Supreme Court has ignored it and let the executive bulldoze everyone to submit, get this “voluntary” (that’s the official definition) number and link it in more and more databases.
Long story short, depending on the Indian judiciary for justice on large enough matters that affect the entire country and its future is futile. If it’s a simpler matter affecting one or two companies or a political party, the justice will be swift.
In the Aadhaar issue, the supreme court has at least clarified that aadhaar cannot be mandatory for most things. However, it upheld the requirement for linking PAN numbers to aadhaar.
PAN card is required for pretty much any major financial transaction so it does open up a major loophole. However it *is* possible to do a lot of things without Aadhaar, it just takes significantly longer and involves a lot of back and forth. The trick is to get past the frontline folks and talk to someone with real authority. Mentioning the Supreme court judgement or better still the relevant ombudsman does wonders in making the previously 'mandatory' aadhaar non mandatory.
I am not very optimistic about the situation improving anytime soon. I'm regularly shocked at how little people care about privacy are offer up detailed personal information on demand.
> The hardest part of learning to drive on the left is not turning on your windshield wipers every time you turn a corner.
This is something to learn the very first time when getting into a (new/unfamiliar) car before getting the vehicle moving.
Come to India and drive a few cars from different brands. [1] The rule is to drive on the left side of the road (so the driver is on the right side of the vehicle). But the sticks/levers to turn on the windshield wiper may be on the right side of the steering wheel or on the left side (and vice versa for the turn indicator sticks/levers), depending on the manufacturer. If you don’t check it in advance, you may end up wiping the windshield when you want to signal a turn or end up signaling a turn when you want to get water off the windshield.
[1]: Actually, it’s not recommended for foreigners to attempt to drive in India. The traffic is chaotic and one needs a different way of thinking to drive.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_(2019_film)
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