The Net And The Disappointed

And then you see the rest of it.

Not such a beautiful picture as it turned out to be. While you will be charged by the hour, there was to be more. A hefty maintenance charge, and then a security deposit (refundable, of course). Still, this meant almost Rs 6,000 extra. Too bad. Cross out that and that security deposit, and this turns out to be what could lure all those who thought the Net was a waste of time and money. Anyway, the ensuing brouhaha from the accumulated result of a year of enthusiastic marketing of the Net all 25,000 of them! got through, and VSNL has deferred the revision. Lets hope its for good.

 

Apart from the fact that nobody likes a price hike, there are more things to justify the opposition. For one, prices were already high compared to international standards. Then, VSNL had failed to lure even those for whom the 15,000 odd rupees was peanuts. The service quality was acceptable today, abysmal tomorrow anything but consistent. They shouldnt have even thought about it till the numbers grew.

The other day, I came across an article in one of the information technology magazines. The writer was one who had cancelled his internet account as he had become so thoroughly disappointed with the VSNLs quality or the lack of it of service. While the article made a few pertinent points, the writer went wrong on certain premises.

Blame it on the hype, but the Net doesnt mean money. Nobody makes money on the Net so far, not yet. Forget the hype. We, in India, wont be making money on the Net for a long, long time. The writer obviously was under the idea that as soon as he got the hang of it, money would be flowing in. No sir. The world over, people have been trying it for a long time, and even they havent had much of a success of it. And here, not till the government decides to let us use credit cards on the Net. And not till credit cards get more popular than they already are. And, most definitely, not till a substantial chunk of the great Indian middle class have PCs at home and internet accounts to boot.

Then again, the writer says the Net is a terrible disappointment. It is, if you have a Shell account and that is what the writer had. You use a shell account strictly for information and communication. If you are someone who doesnt have friends or branch offices with Internet accounts, there cannot be any useful communication over the Net. If he, on the other hand, had a TCP/IP account with all its accompanying graphics, he would have stayed with it for a while more. So, forget blaming the internet it doesnt know you have a cheap Shell account.

Heard the bug fuss about international calls over the Net? Or videoconferencing? If anyone tells you that they do it with any kind of consistency, they are lying. Nobody does it in India. Perhaps, with an exceptionally good 28.8 Kbps connection a real 28.8 Kbps connection, I mean then probably you have done it. With total strangers at the other end! Forget about chatting to friends! Nobody has that kind of bandwidth to offer you, and attempting it is one of the causes why America Online recently went off-line!

Making money on the Net? Recent reports indicate that even the most used search engine Yahoo! is having a tough time on the Net. So who should use the Net? Organisations, so they can sent e-mails to their offices and save on courier and fax charges. Students, if they are sure they have the patience and techno-savvy to tame their Shell accounts. And anyone who needs to do research on professional topics especially journalists and software professionals. And for those who want to try out the Net just for the heck of it so they can keep with the latest trends in technology. If you are looking to make money on the Net rather than save a bit, you have most definitely come to the wrong place for that.