Good for Shourie in Delhi, good for the bin at home.

The CAG Report is good enough for going after Shourie but, in West Bengal it ends up in the bin.

Let's talk business, Mr Maran.

Okay, I want a 2Mbps ADSL connection and I'm in the USA. So, Verizon gives it to me for US$59.95 and it is 3Mbps upstream/768Kbps downstream. How much is US$59.95...around Rs 2,600. SBC Yahoo! charges me US$36.99 or Rs 1,600 for 1.5-3Mbps upstream/384-512Kbps downstream with dynamic IP.

What do I get for that much from BSNL? If I pay Rs 3,000 then I get a 512Kbps connection with a data transfer cap of 10GB. MTNL is a bit measly, only 2.5GB download limit for a 512Kbps connection.

You needn't be a rocket scientist to figure out that even for business, we are getting gypped even when compared to the US. Going by what the Minister says.

More on Mr Maran's delusion.

I wonder whether the Minister knows that Korea Telecom charges 30,000 Won (Rs 1,310) for a 4Mbps ADSL connection if there is no long-term contract. For a 3-year contract, the cost drops to 25,500 Won (Rs 1,112). There are no download caps, at least on the KT site.

What does MTNL give us for Rs 1,199? Let's see...oh great! 256Kbps and a data transfer cap of 1.25GB. What about BSNL? Okay, you get a 384Kbps connection with a 2GB data cap for Rs 1,000. Sound better than MTNL, at least!

We have a long way to go before we can even consider the possibility of catching up. Ever.

You too, Mr Maran?

"China and Korea are the only countries that match our volume-based broadband offerings for corporates. We are much, much cheaper than broadband service providers in Europe and the United States," says our very own Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of Information Technology and Communications.

Does he know what speeds the world has moved to while we are going ga-ga over 256Kbps? They count it in Mbps and the Minister has the gall to suggest that India is next to China and Korea on broadband costs! While the world is moving to Gbps, we are battling 300MB download caps!

So much for Indian broadband.