Why's it got to be like this (the net connection version)??

I don't get it - why is something as basic as getting a decent, uninterrupted net connection turning out to be such a chore?? I got Tata Indicom a couple weeks ago - and they turned out to be crap - and now I have applied for a BSNL connection - but have not heard from them yet either.

But besides my personal issues is the fact that for a large part, broadband connections are nowhere near where they need to be in India. The govt. defines a broadband connection in India as any connection that is on 24/7 and has a speed of 256kbps or up - note that is kbps, not KBps - which means that the nos. you will see while downloading shit will be ~30 (KBps).

This is absolute horseshit - no way in today's day and age can you define a connection downloading files at 30 KBps a broadband connection - broadband has to be at-least giving you download speeds of 100KBps - at least. The ideal situation would be more like 300-400, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. I mean, is it too much to ask for the standard gmail page to load up (not the plain HTML one - many of you living in the west might not even know that such a thing existed).

I think the problem in India is that no one has invested yet in laying down fiber optic lines - which means there is only so much bandwidth you can give a person - unless you start using unreliable and untested technologies like WiMax (which is what Tata Indicom has given me :(). Until WiMax becomes more reliable or these people lay down fibre optics - things will continue on like this.

Now, I'm not saying that laying down a network of fibre optic cables comes without issues, or that WiMax will never be feasible - but people need to try. Hell, in a city like Bangalore, which is dubbed India's Silicon Valley (hah..) - at least here, they can have fibre optics going - give the companies and the people who work in there, some hope...