Hayai Broadband: How it all began!

[mgcarley]

In order to try and stop hijacking everyone elses threads, I'm doing something I should have done a while ago and creating my own.

For those who have not heard about what we're up to, please check my profile for some clues about how to get in touch (I'm not sure that I'm allowed to directly advertise the website address here), and the discussions at https://broadband.forum/broadband-india/47079-2009-and-we-still-stuck-256kbps-broadband/ and https://broadband.forum/net-neutrality/45311-europe-end-internet/

While we're not live yet, I'd like to gauge what you all want from your ISP so that we can achieve our aim of being the best and the most responsive to users as a whole, in addition to dealing with individual issues when it comes time to launch and any hiccups that may occur when the service is live.

We have the following ideas for plans:

[*]Fixed plans from 1Mbit to 200Mbits, 10GB quota per Mbit (so an 8Mbit connection would be allowed 80GB data transfer in a month).
[*]Mobile plans from 512k to 21Mbits, 5GB quota per Mbit (so a 4Mbit connection would be allowed 20GB data transfer in a month). The mobile network would be data only, whether by 3GPP or Mobile Wimax, we're waiting on licensing information.
[*]Roaming connections: buildings with Hayai service would be equipped with WiFi access points so that users can roam anywhere in the city, and if they happen across a Hayai AP, they can log in using their account credentials and surf the web as if at home - their quota for their fixed line or mobile service then applies.
[*]UNLIMITED TRAFFIC inside the network, at the maximum allowable speed (probably 200Mbits in most cases). This MIGHT NOT APPLY to mobile plans, depending on our hardware/throughput tests.
[*]UNLIMITED SPEED: probably our pre-paid options will have unlimited speed with a data quota: for example 10GB for Rs500 or 50GB for Rs2000 or something like this - the speed will not be limited.
[*]Recently the possibility of MAYBE having some unlimited-quota plans available has come up, most likely in the lower tiers (up to 8, 16 or 24Mbits, perhaps, I'm not 100% sure as of now). It's not as much out of the question as I had previously anticipated.
[*]For quota plans, when the usage reaches something like 95%, 97% and 99%, then the user will be presented with a page that asks them to buy more data. At 100%, the user will not be able to browse or download from the regular internet - only the pages inside our network.
[*]*IF* we have to put a fair-usage policy on "unlimited" plans, the likely option is to simply reduce the speed (maybe all tiers will go to 512kbps), rather than charge for going over the Fair Usage Policy.
[*]VOIP services, allowing you to call several countries for free (included in your subscription - a service that probably comes later).
[*]Software Update services/Software repositories (Windows Update, Updates for the most popular Linux distros, possibly even something like a SourceForge/Download.com/Tucows mirror or something to that effect).
[*]Possibly an iTunes-like store for Indian (Hindi and other) content, including Music and Movies - if possible, anyway. Downloading from either the software repos or the music store would not be included in your quota (as in, downloads would be free and fast).
[/list]
FAQ:
"When will the service be available?"
We plan to launch and have a partial rollout in Q4 2009, all things going well, however for the most part it's up to the government.

"Where will the service be available?"
To answer that, we were originally planning to launch in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane, but there is now the possibility of following with other cities a year earlier than originally anticipated, licensing and governmental stuff pending, of course. What I can encourage at this point is PLEASE visit the website and sign up with as much information as possible - part of the reason being that the areas which have the most interest are most likely to get shiny new fibre-optic cables installed faster. At the moment the website only has the option for Mumbai/NM/Thane, but it's being redeveloped, and will include at least states and some other Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities.

"How much will the service cost?"
I originally had a price of about Rs 1,200 for a 1Mbit connection in Mumbai, however new factors have come in to the equation, and within a week or so from today, I should know more about whether this is still relevant or whether I can bring the price down even further.

"Charges for going over quota, Fair-usage policy? I don't want a big bill!"
Fair enough. See above.

"How fast will it go?"
Whether you're on a fixed line or wifi, it's generally the same:
Internal network: MAXIMUM SPEED that your line can handle.
The rest of the internet: Depends on your plan.

[*]]Pre-paid users will most likely get maximum speed and a certain quota for data.
[*]Post-paid users would most likely get a certain speed tier, and unlimited data (some plans). A "Fair usage policy" MAY com in to play also (see above).
[/list]
Fixed-line and WiFi connections are SYNCHRONOUS, both on the internal network and on the rest of the internet - rather than (for example) 8Mbits download and 1Mbit upload (as in ADSL), an 8Mbit connection would be 8Mbits download, 8Mbits upload.

Mobile: We may eliminate speed tiers on mobile, and users purchase data rather than time or different speeds. For certain plans, there may also be the possibility of having hardware-limited options depending on the USB-device purchased. The cheapest model might allow a maximum of 2.5Mbits, mid-range of 7.2Mbits and top-range 21Mbits. Unlike the fixed-line and wifi options, mobile upload speeds here would be less than download speeds, due to the hardware/standards of the protocol.

"Customer Service?"
I plan to be hand-picking the Customer Service Representatives in order to ensure a high-level of expertise in my call centers, rather than having a "warm body" following a script.

"What about Authentication?"
Fixed lines: Probably PPPoE, but we won't require the use of a special client or anything - the default dialer of your operating system should do. Considering the network will be either FTTB or free-space optics or Wimax, the most insecure point of the network is likely to be in the building itself, although our equipment will be protected as best as possible to prevent tampering and unauthorized access. Same rules as your internet banking: DON'T GIVE AWAY YOUR PASSWORD.
WiFi: Will be authenticated through a login page. WiFi itself will be unencrypted, and thus should only be used as a backup/secondary/roaming option (ideally). Same password can be used for WiFi as your fixed-line service.
Mobile: Probably PPP (dialup) - similar to using your mobile as a modem. I will try and ensure that the device supports *NIX, Mac and Windows.

If I think of anything else specifically to mention, I'll add it here. More questions? Write them here, or contact me by PM, Skype, Twitter, MSN, Gtalk, Yahoo or ICQ.

 

[vishalrao]

I think this thread should be made sticky too 😀

Here was my first post on this topic in the other thread: https://broadband.forum/broadband-india/47079-2009-and-we-still-stuck-256kbps-broadband/7/#post331901 (of course, we shouldnt continue to post hayai discussion in the other thread but in this one!)

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And another post for reference: https://broadband.forum/broadband-india/47079-2009-and-we-still-stuck-256kbps-broadband/8/#post331907

(i think some of the more relevant/important posts should be linked or copied into this thread too)

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As far as im concerned this is the most exciting thread on this forum about broadband IMHO...

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Another post: https://broadband.forum/net-neutrality/45311-europe-end-internet/2/#post326916

All this sounds exciting/idealistic, what's discouraging is that you want to lay fiber? what can you do by yourself that other large corps like Airtel, Reliance... Railwire have failed to do about penetration - that last mile problem.

Why not get a cheaper but fast new technology like LTE or WiMax... (I hope govt wakes up and is faster to allow LTE asap)...

I was looking at:

4G - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

3GPP Long Term Evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Verizon decides on LTE for 4G wireless broadband - Ars Technica

LTE: Dreaming of Wireless Broadband

 

[mgcarley]

mgcarley,

Do you happen to be related to Telenor or Teleia Sonera in any way?


No, apart from the fact that I used to live in Finland and know people who work for TeliaSonera and have used their services for both fixed and mobile for a couple of years.

The wireless packages are interesting. Hopefully you will be able to roll out wireless services in major metros soon, even if roll out of wired network is slow to start with.


Definitely. As I may have previously mentioned, Wireless solutions will be available, but for high-bandwidth applications are not favourable, partly because of the rubbish implementations of the existing players.

Hayai Freedom+ Mobile Broadband - Speed and Data Packages | Hayai

What technology are you going to use for 14 mbps and 21 mbps wireless? What is the expected price of USB device going to be for these services? Are we talking about LTE here?

Put simply, yes. However, With all that said, so many things are changing at the moment with regards to feasibility and cost price, so and it does depend on the licence we manage to obtain in each circle.

As such, the delivery mechanism could vary by circle (as in, the tech might be different in Delhi to Mumbai, since we have to obtain these licenses in each state). We have partners working on this issue.

USB devices capable of about 7Mbits sell for about 100-130€ in Europe, therefore in terms of the device price/performance, Mobile WiMax is cheaper to the end user, but may be more expensive to deploy. We're trying to access test data from NTT to determine which is best for practical use.

The USB devices capable of 21Mbits currently sell in Europe for about 250€ and Australia for AU$399, so they're a bit expensive. But, we expect users opting for the high-speed plans won't be entirely bothered by the device price (even if it is something like Rs15,000): so long as the product delivers on its promise.

In any case, it is beginning to look like that we will have to rework all these mobile plans and eliminate speed tiers completely, because it seems overly complicated to sell the speed tiers like this.

As such, we may have a simple "max-speed with x-amount of data" basis, with the main speed "limiters" could/should be the device itself: we have an option that supports 2.5mbits for like Rs2k, another that supports 7 for Rs5k and another that supports 21 for Rs 15k, and then users just buy a chunk of data for a fixed price.

As always, input is welcome from you.

I think this thread should be made sticky too 😀

Here was my first post on this topic in the other thread: https://broadband.forum/broadband-india/47079-2009-and-we-still-stuck-256kbps-broadband/7/#post331901 (of course, we shouldnt continue to post hayai discussion in the other thread but in this one!)[COLOR=\"Silver\"]

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[/COLOR]And another post for reference: https://broadband.forum/broadband-india/47079-2009-and-we-still-stuck-256kbps-broadband/8/#post331907

(i think some of the more relevant/important posts should be linked or copied into this thread too)[COLOR=\"Silver\"]

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[/COLOR]As far as im concerned this is the most exciting thread on this forum about broadband IMHO...[COLOR=\"Silver\"]

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[/COLOR]Another post: https://broadband.forum/net-neutrality/45311-europe-end-internet/2/#post326916

All this sounds exciting/idealistic, what's discouraging is that you want to lay fiber? what can you do by yourself that other large corps like Airtel, Reliance... Railwire have failed to do about penetration - that last mile problem.

Why not get a cheaper but fast new technology like LTE or WiMax... (I hope govt wakes up and is faster to allow LTE asap)...


We will also have LTE/Wimax options, however these are not favourable for extremely high bandwidth situations (see my reply above). We will definiately have LTD/Wimax available for "mobile" users. With Railtel, they actually have a fantastic nationwide fibre network, which covers just about every railway in the country. Railwire (their consumer product) is still being tested in Bangalore, and they have plans to expand, but in places like Mumbai, as also mentioned, it's a direct cost issue: 1km of Fibre in Mumbai is about Rs 50 lakh and as far as I'm aware, the cost of the fibre itself is NOT included, bringing the total to about Rs 60 lakh per kilometre.

As it happens, they have expressed interest in our product.

I was looking at:

4G - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

3GPP Long Term Evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Verizon decides on LTE for 4G wireless broadband - Ars Technica

LTE: Dreaming of Wireless Broadband

Yes. 3GPP is our preferred option for mobile delivery. Otherwise, we may have to make do with Mobile Wimax. It's a license thing - oh so many licenses we must obtain before we can even operate! Gotta love the government.

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What would everyone say to free or discounted broadband for (certain types of) students and possibly also doctors?

 

[xuxiq]

^^ 'Free' in my opinion would be too much you may give discounts like upto 50% or something which you may decide and give to students, doctors, senior citizens, war veterans, etc, hope you get the idea.Even I think this really deserves to be a sticky and would agree that this is definitely the hottest thread on this forum. :irock:

 

[mgcarley]

^^ 'Free' in my opinion would be too much you may give discounts like upto 50% or something which you may decide and give to students, doctors, senior citizens, war veterans, etc, hope you get the idea.

Even I think this really deserves to be a sticky and would agree that this is definitely the hottest thread on this forum. :irock:

Fair enough - I was thinking "free" up to a point - there might be a special student package that would have a 5GB monthly limit on it or something, and possibly traffic shaping to prevent things like torrents - and maybe special access to educational material (which, naturally, being hosted by us wouldn't count towards the quota).

In NZ, the government "sponsors" high-speed internet for doctors and such who make use of things like electronic claiming (for insurance, social security etc) and all the types of things which will probably be coming to India with this new ID-card you're all going to have.

These things the existing ISPs could be doing but are not.

 

[xuxiq]

^^ Right, I agree, well, but after reading the first post in this thread again, carefully, I don't agree with this point
# *IF* we have to put a fair-usage policy on "unlimited" plans, the likely option is to simply reduce the speed (maybe all tiers will go to 512kbps), rather than charge for going over the Fair Usage Policy.
I believe you should follow a policy like suppose a guy has a 2Mbps connection he should not be put on 512Kbps when he crosses his limit but instead on 1Mbps and then maybe it should be like this for the whole month or maybe you may have a 2nd Fair Usage Policy with a much lower limit and then the user should be sent to 3/4 of the speed that guy is paying for, in this case, 512Kbps for the whole month.

But then there is that big 'IF' there.

 

---

[mgcarley]

^^ Right, I agree, well, but after reading the first post in this thread again, carefully, I don't agree with this point
# *IF* we have to put a fair-usage policy on "unlimited" plans, the likely option is to simply reduce the speed (maybe all tiers will go to 512kbps), rather than charge for going over the Fair Usage Policy.
I believe you should follow a policy like suppose a guy has a 2Mbps connection he should not be put on 512Kbps when he crosses his limit but instead on 1Mbps and then maybe it should be like this for the whole month or maybe you may have a 2nd Fair Usage Policy with a much lower limit and then the user should be sent to 3/4 of the speed that guy is paying for, in this case, 512Kbps for the whole month.

But then there is that big 'IF' there.

And here I was thinking I was being reasonable 😀

In New Zealand, they take you down to 64kbits only if you go over your quota - even if you're on the 24Mbits plan!!

512kbps doesn't make the service unusable, and I would imagine that, if people are paying for different speed tiers, then the "Fair Usage Policy" for each plan would be different - for example:

If the FUP for a 20Mbit connection is 200GB, then going by that logic, a 50Mbit connection might allow 500GB.

In most cases, reducing a 50Mbit connection to 25Mbits is barely noticeable unless you're clocking downloads, hence perhaps a drastic reduction is needed in order for the policy to be effective.

The reason for this is, it doesn't theoretically cost me really a great deal more to provide a customer with a 1Mbit connection versus an 8Mbit connection (ADSL version 1 speeds) - what does cost is the GB of transfer - whether it's transferred at 1Mbit or 8Mbits, it still costs me basically the same.

This was another motivation for me to eliminate speed caps on some plans (pre-paid) and just have users purchase data, although certainly not at Rs 600 per gigabyte (if we go by Airtel prices).

For other plans, basically speaking once the user reaches a certain number of gigabytes, as soon as s/he goes over that limit, it's eating directly in to the profit margin, which leaves the potential for the company to go under - and the government isn't bailing us out - after all, this isn't the US 😉

As such, a FUP to reduce the speed to something less (eg 512kbits) after X gigabytes of international transfer seems to be the best option - keeping in mind that this speed reduction still only applies to international traffic, not in-network traffic, so users on DCPP or Bittorrent or transferring files over Skype/MSN (assuming both users are Hayai customers, of course) are not affected.

With keeping the in-network speed to a maximum, I figure at the very least I'm helping to save the environment by reducing the number of DVDs being burned and distributed by the... uh... DVDwalas? And faster speeds also mean (indirectly) less power bills, which will keep a lot of parents/bill-payers happy 🙂

 

[xuxiq]

^^ Ok, I understand your problem. :wewin:
Anyways in the first post you also mention
Possibly an iTunes-like store for Indian (Hindi and other) content, including Music and Movies - if possible, anyway. Downloading from either the software repos or the music store would not be included in your quota (as in, downloads would be free and fast).
Would your subscriber have to buy/pay for it like the song/movie/anything which he is buying? Otherwise, in my opinion it would amount to piracy, I suppose?

 

[saurabh28]

Launch Unlimited plans with good FUP

 

[mgcarley]

^^ Ok, I understand your problem. :wewin:
Anyways in the first post you also mention
Possibly an iTunes-like store for Indian (Hindi and other) content, including Music and Movies - if possible, anyway. Downloading from either the software repos or the music store would not be included in your quota (as in, downloads would be free and fast).
Would your subscriber have to buy/pay for it like the song/movie/anything which he is buying? Otherwise, in my opinion it would amount to piracy, I suppose?

Yes, of course users would have to pay for the songs/movies etc, except where those are in the public domain - simply the bandwidth would be free, so you could download say, 5GB of music and use none of your quota - as opposed to downloading it from Limewire or something and using 5GB of your quota. This would be one of the many value-added-services we hope to integrate in to our service offerings.

Launch Unlimited plans with good Fair Usage Policy

It is my goal, and we will do it if it becomes at all possible. As of now, it's a definite maybe. I have a meeting on Tuesday (4 August) which should give me a better answer as to the possibilities on this.

hey, I don't know if this is real, But if it is all legit, I will definitely look into the aspect switching as I'm on the look out for the fastest internet I can get. Now I noticed that you had limits in bandwidth and a fair usage policy, that's a big no-no from me, if you have caps on data transfer you could count a vast majority of prospective buyers including me back out, I would be willing to shell out 3-4k for good speed( presently get 1mbit but would like more for the price). You're company seems to be coming along very well, If you're ever in need of beta tester etc, you can always contact me as I'd be willing to do it for free and would give you excellent feedback. Lastly I wish you success in your endeavors and think you are doing something good and am sure you will be well received by the city of Mumbai.

The original plans were simple: For every Mbit speed tier, there would be a 10GB data quota attached to it - so a 10Mbit connection would have a 100GB quota and a 100Mbit connection would have a 1TB quota etc. For some people this is suitable, others not.

I also can't stress enough that, with more customers joining the network, the number of local peers in applications such as bit-torrent will go up, reducing the amount your torrents will eat in to your quota, in addition to things like Windows Updates and so forth as mentioned also.

Even then, I understand that quotas don't work well with many people on this forum, however for someone like my mother-in-law who mainly checks email and visits youtube now and then (she's currently on 128k), a speed boost is better than slower unlimited access - she visits the US several times a year and complains about how slow the net is when she comes home to India.

Because of this, I'm working and reworking the plans to have several options available, and my "magical spreadsheet" becomes ever more complicated, and I'll explain also about the Fair Usage Policy in a bit, because I too am not a fan. Most of you have probably heard by now where I've come from and what I'm used to - and why using the Internet in this country makes me cringe.

As it stands now, the options are:

[*]Fixed-line (prepaid): No speed limit, buy a certain amount of data at a fairly decent rate. Once the limit is being approached (say 95%) user gets warnings when browsing suggesting that it's time to top up (similar to when you get low balance on your mobile).
[*]Fixed-line (postpaid): Limited speed in tiers from 1 to 200Mbits. Some plans will be unlimited, others will have caps (so for tiers up to 24Mbits, I expect there would be a quota plan and an unlimited plan at a different price).
[*]On unlimited plans, ***IF*** we have to apply a fair usage policy, it will certainly be generous - as I may have already mentioned, they will be at least on-par with policies in Europe and the USA.
[*]Mobile: Undecided on the speed limits - maybe also no limit, user buys data, and the throughput of the service depends on which data card you buy: the cheapest provides maybe 2.5Mbits, mid-range provides 7Mbits and top provides 21mbits; though this may also be confusing, so chances are that, as with the fixed lines, there would be pre-paid options with unlimited speed and post-paid options with different speeds and data packages.
[*]For ALL plans, in-network downloads should be max-speed, and not counting towards quota.
[*]For ALL plans connections are synchronous - that is, if you have 8Mbits down, you have 8Mbits up also (except in certain circumstances, such as mobile/3GPP, due to the fact that the equipment handles only 21Mbits down and 5.5Mbits up). Otherwise, considering most fixed-line solutions will be delivered by fibre-optics, we see no need to limit upload speed also.
[/list]
Price-wise, for Rs 4k, it is likely that we would do probably about 8Mbits/80GB cap, but the prices are not final due to all the negotiations and changes going on at the moment.

As mentioned, check back with me on Tuesday or Wednesday. When the network does begin going live, and we start testing the different equipment for day-to-day use, be assured that we will be looking here first for testers.

 

[Sushubh]

frankly speaking... 8Mbits/80GB cap is not going to work for most users on this forum at least. the faster the speeds you get, the more you end up downloading. the more you would want to download. 80GB is nothing when you are downloading at 8mbps. and about the local network free downloads offering... it's worthless unless you have at least a thousand users on the same network in the same city. if a locality has just 10 users on your network... it is very unlikely that any of these customers would be downloading the same file using a p2p network.

 

[mgcarley]

frankly speaking... 8Mbits/80GB cap is not going to work for most users on this forum at least.

the faster the speeds you get, the more you end up downloading. the more you would want to download. 80GB is nothing when you are downloading at 8mbps.


Agreed, I know exactly what you mean. As mentioned, prices and whatnot are purely speculation at the moment because of all the new things coming in - I had to throw all my old prices out the window. All I can say as of now is "stay tuned".

and about the local network free downloads offering... it's worthless unless you have at least a thousand users on the same network in the same city.

if a locality has just 10 users on your network... it is very unlikely that any of these customers would be downloading the same file using a p2p network.

Agreed. However it's not limited to any particular locality - it is, literally, anyone connected to our network, anywhere. The beauty of having our own fibre. Given that we assume that the service will attract more than 10 users, we're confident that, although it might be a tough first few months, once our user-base hits 5,000 or so, the aforementioned advantages will become very obvious.

The size of our first line suggests that upon launch, we'll be ready to support about 31,000 users on the "regular internet" according to the regulations, and if I have my math right, most parts of the internal network will support all 31,000 users transferring at about 16Mbits synchronously, simultaneously and as a non-stop stream (which would be about 4TB/user/month).

This is assuming everything is run through only 1 switch for the whole network - actual throughput will be higher, of course, because we're not running just one switch - that would be a recipe for disaster. Speaking of which, I shouldn't be making these calculations at this time of the day. Thank you for all your questions and feedback thus far - keep it coming.

 

[Sushubh]

and i guess local network only comes into the equation with a p2p application. http downloads are simply not going to gain anything if another user is or has downloaded the same file in the past. so that's painful as well.

 

[coimby]

After a while (but in the nearest future) maybe you could look at providing IPv6, at least to your fixed line customers?

 

[mgcarley]

and i guess local network only comes into the equation with a p2p application.

http downloads are simply not going to gain anything if another user is or has downloaded the same file in the past. so that's painful as well.

It depends. As mentioned in my original post, we plan to mirror a lot of commonly downloaded files from a lot of common sites, but of course we can't do that for each and every file in each corner of the internet.

Naturally, we'll be monitoring traffic usage and trying to optimize the network appropriately, but of course, even HTTP downloads should still be fast - we're purchasing many gigabits of international bandwidth, so this shouldn't be a problem.

The fact that we are (somewhat) concentrating on p2p traffic is because statistically speaking it constitutes one of the largest areas of usage for your average ISP.

After a while (but in the nearest future) maybe you could look at providing IPv6, at least to your fixed line customers?

IPv6 isn't really difficult to implement: it's a matter of the client being enabled to handle it. On our end, it is something we can implement immediately, because when you buy IPv4 addresses, you can buy v6 addresses at the same time. As such, IPv6 would be able to be provided to those who want it, though strictly speaking there isn't much benefit to it at this point because to surf most of the net, one still needs a corresponding IPv4 address.