You Telecom, formerly known as Iqara, is reportedly planning to expand its broadband business.

You Telecom, a Citigroup-owned broadband service provider, plans to spend Rs 300 crore for launching services in 14 new cities across the country by the end of 2008.

The Indian government's new ISP policy has done away with category C licenses for ISPs, according to the Times of India, because they are a burden to the regulator, pose a potential national security threat, and are a risk to consumers.

The co-branded portal, mtnl.aol.in will offer a compelling combination of AOL products: easy to use e-mail service, instant messenger, content straddling across channels like Cricket, Bollywood, Hollywood, music including integrated videos in many channels, in addition to MTNL utilities like services and product offerings, games, tariff plans and customer care, an AOL statement said.

LUG - Delhi maintains a list (dubbed the Hall of Shame) of government and other (deemed) critical websites that force users to use proprietary technology (usually Internet explorer) to access their pages.

After the public exhibition of gross incompetence by the Indian government and ISPs alike, it is in everybody's interest to know how to bypass these ridiculous blanket bans.

The following is a general guide that will ideally allow you to visit said blocked sites. If you have any questions or comments, please use the fora.

It is recommended that you use Firefox to follow any steps outlined below. However, it should be reasonably straightforward to adapt them to other browsers as well.

What is a proxy?

A proxy (server) to put it simply, acts like a middleman and retrieves web pages on your behalf. For e.g. since the GOI and incompetent techs at ISPs all over India have decided to block blogs like mumbaihelp on blogspot, instead of asking your browser to retrieve the mumbaihelp page, you can ask your browser to ask the middleman (proxy) to get it for you. So, for all essential purposes, you are only accessing the middleman (who has not been censored) and not mumbaihelp.

Internet and telephony major Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) is planning to take on United States Trade Representative (USTR) on allegations that VSNL is creating artificial shortages of bandwidth in and out of India.

USTR, which deals with trade and anti-competitive practices, has accused VSNL of creating bandwidth crisis. In its ‘Telecommunications Trade Agreements’ report, the organisation has also alleged that VSNL was responsible for bottlenecking of bandwidth, in turn, preventing US operators from serving Indian customers.

Tatas-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited is planning to lay an undersea cable between India and Europe, covering about 10,000 km, at an investment of over $300 million (about Rs 1,350 crore).
When contacted, senior VSNL officials confirmed the plan and said that the company was expecting to have enough demand for bandwidth by 2008 and keeping this in mind VSNL has undertaken the major project.

Story: The Hindu.

India's mobile music industry will apparently soon overtake its conventional counterpart, with projected sales for 2006 set at INR 7.2 billion.

Airtel has a subscriber base of 20m, out of which 6m use mobile music services. During the last financial year, the company registered about 50m downloads. This year, music downloads are slated to go up as the company adds more subscribers.

For instance almost all operators have launched an "Easy Music" service that allows subscribers to walk into a mobile phone outlet, choose their favorite music from a huge catalogue of music in as many as 20 languages and download onto their mobile phones -- or even other digital devices like iPod -- for as little as 15 cents each for a Hindi song or 30 cents for an international song.

The Help Vampire: A Spotter's Guide is a good read for anybody who is involved in online communities.

Related link: ESR's excellent How to ask questions the smart way.

-K

ET has an interesting article overviewing the impact of various technology initiatives in rural India including the following gem:

Started under the governement's Grameen Sanchar Sevak scheme, a postman totes mobile phone along with letters. Postmen carry WLL (wireless in local loop) phones while delivering mail. Residents can use the phone to make calls, both local and STD for certian charge. The service is targeted at people who do not own a telephone.