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Comment by lrk_sirius | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't really work in the Lucknow railway station. Although there are ads all over the place that say "High Speed Wi-Fi available here", sometimes your device won't even discover the "Railwire" SSID.

A high-speed Wi-Fi service also seems a bit stupid given the fact that no ISP in Lucknow provides an unlimited 50+ Mbps broadband connection. What do they expect us to do? Take our laptops and sit at the station which is littered with rats, monkeys, their shit, and trash?

You can get an unlimited <50Mbps connection but that'll cost you approximately $500 - $1000 a month. For other "home users" there are shitty plans that give you 30GB-200GB of data with 2Mbps - 16Mbps for approximately $30 a month.

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Are you sure it is 500$ - 1000$ a month or 500Rs - 1000Rs a month? Which part of India are you talking about?

I live in Hyderabad and I get 100mbps unlimited for just 2000Rs per month (which is approximately 30$ per month). You can check the tariff page for proof: http://www.actcorp.in/personal/fibernet/plans

I think you were ripped off by a local ISP who cheated you with really high rates just because you are a foreigner.

What do you mean "unlimited"? It's not unlimited. There's a data cap after 300GB of usage on the Rs. 1999 plan being offered.

I'm not a foreigner. I live in Lucknow, India and this is what my options are right now.

http://www.sikkanet.com/home-users/unshared-plans/

http://www.sikkanet.com/corporate-users/

http://www.techiit.com/airtel-broadband-tariff-plans-lucknow...

In the case of Airtel, "upto 16Mbps" means that maximum 4Mbps due to "technical restrictions."

You're lucky that you're getting that kind of a connection. Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata are probably the only cities in India where one can get that kind of a connection without trouble.

I don't understand why the lack of a good ISP in Lucknow means someone should not try provide high-speed Wi-Fi at the train station. Are you saying it's an inefficient allocation of resources?

> Are you saying it's an inefficient allocation of resources?

Obviously.

That's what it seemed like but I don't think it's sound logic. It'd be one thing if the municipality said, "You know what we need? Free wifi at the train station!" and then allocated budget for that. That's not what's happened, it's Google and Railtel doing this nationwide.

Sounds like there's room for a startup to provide a satisfactory internet service in your city.

Maybe also room for a startup that could keep your train station free of rats, monkeys and feces and trash.

Yeah, good luck with that. One would prefer jumping off the top of Burj Khalifa rather than deal with the bureaucracy and the illiterate government officials who control these things.

In my opinion, an ISP startup over here is only possible if either the government wakes up (not gonna happen) or if someone with millions of dollars to spend on infrastructure and bribes is willing to do it.

>Sounds like there's room for a startup to provide a satisfactory internet service in your city.

Unfortunately in most cities, Airtel (India's biggest ISP) has a monopoly and the other local cable providers either cut the cables for other ISPs or either simply steal them (it was/is a major problem for BSNL, the state-owned ISP).

>Maybe also room for a startup that could keep your train station free of rats, monkeys and feces and trash.

The trouble here is that the railway contracts usually go to people who throw in a bribe to the station-master and the higher ups in the Railway Board. And of course, the contractors don't do their jobs properly because, well, people gotta earn some money.

Not completely true. There's a process of tenders

http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/tenders.html

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