Bandwidth

So we're back in Bangalore, & we're setting ourselves up with a rental flat & the assorted arrangements you need to make to live. Now, do not get me wrong, I know that what I'm going to talk about may not be an issue that affects all of India, or at least there are other, bigger problems which other Indians live with & I don't; at the same time, we're really facing energy crisis for fueling/sustaining our economic growth.

So what really is the bandwidth that your ISP provides for your home internet connection? Can you believe that Sify actually qualifies a 128 Kbps connection as Broadband , when the Government of India, rather lamely I must admit, defines a broadband connection to be at least 256 Kbps? Lamely beacuse, 256 Kbps is NOT broadband. Broadband is enough bandwidth to make a telephone call over the internet with no lags of any kind, enough bandwidth to view media-rich web sites as if they were all text. Internationally, anything less than 2 Mbps is not broadband.

I'm really struggling with getting a ISP to provide me good service at J P Nagar. I called Sify & they never called back. BSNL, I'm told, provide relatively hassle-free connections, but they take two-months. Reliance does provide broadband with speeds "upto" 2000 Kbps, though just about everybody I talked to advised me to avoid Reliance. And Airtel does not have service in the J P Nagar area.

And all this in Bangalore.

S!