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Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

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Re: Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

#21

Post by mildlyclassic »

the_common_man wrote: post #20

I really like this. I am wondering why you chose not to target the Coffee days, Barista instead? Last I checked, none of them had wifi. At the same time, maybe it's because they are not very friendly if you sit and work there :-)

We've chosen to go the streets because thats where most of India lives. The middle class of the country is well catered to by technology companies, the poorer among us aren't.

The average Indian doesn't have access to wifi at home or at work and data is too expensive for them. There's literally no place they can go to get cheap internet access.

We want to fill that need.

Re: Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

#22

Post by mildlyclassic »

bankim wrote: post #19

How does a customer pay and use the service? Pay the panwallah and he gives customer a code which is used to bill?

The customer pays cash and gets a paper token with a token number on it. They connect to the wifi and enter the token number to authenticate.

Re: Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

#23

Post by mildlyclassic »

X86BSD wrote: post #14
mildlyclassic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's super fast because we draw a 100mbps line to each store. We install our own routers. It's totally free for the store owner, we charge nothing up front. We split revenue with the store owner 80-20.

Where are you getting fast Ethernet pipes to stores there?? Having been there I find it hard to believe that infrastructure is there.

You'd be amazed at the amount of fibre that's already been laid. We work with 5 different ISP's to get the best connection possible.

Re: Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

#24

Post by mkagenius »

mildlyclassic wrote: post #12
pj_mukh wrote: post #11

My God, this is such a good idea and I have so many questions. a) I'm guessing you are expecting people to use this WiFi on their smartphones? Are your prices coming under the usual Indian telecom data prices? b) If Facebook comes to you tomorrow and tells you they'll help cut your margins by 75% if you favour their traffic. Would you do it? You'd be able to pass on the price drop to other Indians.

A. We're entirely focussed on the 10 minutes when you're standing at the tea stall drinking your tea and flipping through your phone. Our prices are 5x cheaper than mobile data. B. Favour their traffic? No way.

Shouldn't we be encouraging few minutes of peace instead? Like, we will take away your phones for next 10 minutes for Rs. 2

Re: Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

#26

Post by mildlyclassic »

mkagenius wrote: post #24
mildlyclassic wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A. We're entirely focussed on the 10 minutes when you're standing at the tea stall drinking your tea and flipping through your phone. Our prices are 5x cheaper than mobile data. B. Favour their traffic? No way.

Shouldn't we be encouraging few minutes of peace instead? Like, we will take away your phones for next 10 minutes for Rs. 2

:) We're planning to offer charging services too. Plug in your phone and sit in peace while it charges.

Re: Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

#27

Post by the_common_man »

mildlyclassic wrote: post #21
the_common_man wrote: post #20

I really like this. I am wondering why you chose not to target the Coffee days, Barista instead? Last I checked, none of them had wifi. At the same time, maybe it's because they are not very friendly if you sit and work there :-)

We've chosen to go the streets because thats where most of India lives. The middle class of the country is well catered to by technology companies, the poorer among us aren't. The average Indian doesn't have access to wifi at home or at work and data is too expensive for them. There's literally no place they can go to get cheap internet access. We want to fill that need.

You are most likely correct. Middle class can probably afford 3G. This is a really good niche. If you manage to make it work, it would be awesome!

Re: Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

#28

Post by mildlyclassic »

msound wrote: post #17

Congratulations Karam and Shubhendu! Two questions: 1. Does this mean you are an ISP? If so, how did you go about registering as an ISP. 2. Most other WiFi (ex: at Cafe Coffee Day) requires one to register via SMS and pay by credit card. So the mobile number and Credit Card number becomes the primary key for our Government's Big Brother program to track the person. Have you side-stepped that by selling tokens that on…

1. We are an ISP, we've applied for the license from the Department of Telecom

2. The Telecom Regulatory of Authority of India has just recommended stopping the use of OTP. We really like that.

Re: Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

#29

Post by blhack »

Seriously 20 rupees for 20GB?!?

For context, that is about $0.30.

In any case, this is awesome. Any plans to expand to other cities soon?

An unrelated question (that I think you might have a good answer to): When I've been to India, I've noticed that there is a lot of free WiFi around (in Mumbai, at least), but ALL of it requires that you have an Indian phone number that you have to register in order to get access.

Why is this? The cynic in me assumes that this so that network traffic can be tied to a real human being (since your phone number is tied to your person).

I guess a followup question: were there any interesting regulatory hurdles you had to jump through for this? Also what does the backhaul look like? Are you reselling 4G data? Building your own wireless backhaul maybe?

Cool project!

Re: Launch HN: Wifi Dabba (YC W17) – Low-Cost Wifi in India

#30

Post by mildlyclassic »

blhack wrote: post #29

Seriously 20 rupees for 20GB?!? For context, that is about $0.30. In any case, this is awesome. Any plans to expand to other cities soon? An unrelated question (that I think you might have a good answer to): When I've been to India, I've noticed that there is a lot of free WiFi around (in Mumbai, at least), but ALL of it requires that you have an Indian phone number that you have to register in order to get access. W…

The phone number requirement is a government thing, it's not really from the provider's perspective. The good news is that the government is rethinking this and TRAI has recently recommended stopping it.

Our backhaul is 100mbps fibre lines.

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