Here’s the latest Telecom Regulatory Authority of India report on the scene in India -

…the total number of Wireless Internet (GPRS + CDMA Internet Access) users, at the end of September 2007, was 46.37 million. (is churn being reported?)
…
Outgoing SMS per user declined approximately 11 percent, from 36 per user per month by for Q2 2007 to 32 for Q3 2007.
…
All in all, the total number of wireless subscribers increased from 184.92 million to 209.07 million, with 55.08 million CDMA subs (26.35%), and 153.99 million GSM subs (73.65%). GSM subs increased by 13.4% during the quarter, while CDMA increased by 12.12%.
…
Average Revenue Per User:
GSM: all India Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) declined by 7.4 % from Rs. 297 to Rs. 275. Post-paid ARPU declined from Rs. 655 to Rs. 632, 3.5 percent.
Prepaid ARPU declined from 7.2 %, from Rs. 248 to Rs. 230.
CDMA: ARPU (prepaid+postpaid) at Rs. 173, down significantly from Rs. 206. Lowest ARPU is in West Bengal (Rs.127) while the highest blended ARPU is in Mumbai (Rs. 274)
…
Internet
There were 9.63 million wireline Internet subscribers at the end of September 2007 as compared to 9.22 million at the end of June 2007, a growth of nearly 4.37%. Readers will remember that the number of subs had declined by 0.5 percent in the previous quarter. The number of broadband subscribers increased by 10.33 percent, to 2.67 million. 72 broadband service providers had a subscriber base of 2.67 million, with 98.3 percent of those subs with 13 sevice providers. Some stats:
– Broadband connections: 2174401 are DSL based; 319010 Cable Modem; 100592 Ethernet LAN; 21688 Fibre; 27664 Radio customers and 28183 Others.
– Average Revenue Per User per month for dialup Internet Subscribers is Rs. 200
Internet Telephony: Total minutes of the use (MoU) for Internet Telephony during the quarter were 129.43 million as compared to 112.26 million for the last quarter registering an increase of 15.29% over the previous quarter.

via ContentSutra 

I just discovered posts from my old blog - vritti.net and it was surreal. It was an impromptu trip down memory lane with some positive revelations. Reading through it I realized I haven’t changed much. The outlook that I had back in 2003 seems to be consistent. I am still excited by the unforeseen and at many levels I still feel like an outsider trying to carve my own niche, though the circumstances defining these realizations have markedly progressed.

It was nice to read lost thoughts on the future that is now part of my past, I feel happier about the present future outlook.

I have been trying to hire my first full-time Ruby on Rails programmer in India and the experience has been disappointing. I recently posted this article here on the Bangalore Ruby Users Group:

Hello People
I am new here - India Web 2.0 scene and Bangalore RUG, been trying to
get a grasp on the landscape here - How is the work environment for
web startups and the ecosystem around it. Its been really great so far
from almost all aspects. The energy is infectious, the market wide
open and a lot of cool development happening.

But I am having a hard time figuring out the talent pool here. For the
most part, people don’t really care about what we or other startups
are doing. RoR Coders that we have met so far don’t start off with
asking about what we are doing or using or innovating on. The first
question happens to be ‘what are you offering?’ and we are always
taken aback. On top of that, why are Indian coders working for Indian
companies talking to an Indian entrepreneur quoting hourly rates in
dollars?

I get the economics of demand and supply. But is there no
rationalization and no interest in creating something cool out of
India? If nothing else, then talking about that before the
conversation gravitates to Rs. (oops $) and loses all enthusiasm.
Almost all startup founders I spoke to warned me about the talent pool
and the shortage of quality committed creative coders, but I am still
kinda shell shocked. We are willing to pay top Rs. and maybe more if
the guy/girl is right, but is that all that matters here? Please tell
me there’s hope for startups who want people who love their code and
can do more than figure out which is their next project.

I would love to hear back from everybody on here.