Cheers, its a new year and what would be a better way to enter the new age of technology and communication than broadband access to the masses?Faster and more reliable access to the net means faster and more reliable communication,quality and quantity wise.Cell phones you say? well they are a staple means when immediate communication is needed, but is falls short when communication has to be extended beyond speech and they tend to be quite expensive if used extensively.

So the best option is of course broadband internet to the masses .And what a bang BSNL made in the news by announcing 2mbps connections for the masses.As in the picture inset, we can see President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (right), with IT and Communications Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, at the India Telecom 2006 conference.According to Mr. Maran, BSNL will be offering high speed of broadband connectivity up to two mbps (megabits per second) to its subscribers who have till now been getting the connection at 256 kbps (kilo bits per second).Hooray, isnt that good news?

Well, not really.Plenty of catches havent been mentioned.Firstly, its upto 2 mbps and not a constant 2 mbps, which means they can still give you only 256kbps and you cant do anything about it.Secondly its available only for aread that are technically feasible, which i do believe is about 10 cities in India.Thirdly and the most annoying part(especially to me), this offer has been extended to all the ‘light’ connections, that is the home 250 and home 500.

I mean like come on, these people are given 2 mbps for what joy?browsing at 2mbps is no different than at 256 kbps .Most of these ‘light’ customers have no clue how to use this speed, let alone know the difference between the two.And the bandwidth limit is another dissing factor which is a huge restriction.Its like driving a ferrari on a dirt road!Woe to the unlimited users who actually know how to use the internet for they have nothing to rejoice this year.They being the ‘elite’ customers have no piece of the pie.BSNL has decided to totally ignore this class, the class that really makes use of broadband internet!No price reduction or increase in speeds. At least 512 kbps would be something to rejoice, but no,absolute ignorance is the word.

So, here’s fifty paise to Maran, to introduce another feature into India, of course to the people who don’t know how to use it.Better yet,deprive the one’s who can benefit most from it of it.