Live data from Hacker News

India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

indianexpress.com

101–110 of 124 posts

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These kinds of comments show the paradox of the modern urban professional. The ones who have reached the top 1-2% in terms of educational achievement and career prospects. They live in cities or remote locations with full amenities - car, electricity and internet, smartphones, laptops. They use apps powered by the global internet and consume from the global supply chain. And they hike in the Himalayas with their DSLR…

Wow, that's a loaded comment that makes a lot of assumptions about me. I am not against connectivity or improving the life of people there, a lot of these areas are already connected by metalled road. What was happening when I was traveling there was widening of the roads indiscriminately, if you talk to people there or even read some of the articles I have linked, there isn't much benefit that local people are seein…

Sentences like this betray your intent:

What was happening when I was traveling there was widening of the roads indiscriminately

Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately.

or

there isn't much benefit that local people are seeing because of this.

How long did you wait before you polled the locals for benefits? What timeline in your opinion is valid for benefits to accrue - 1 year? 3 years?

Apologies if it came across as harsh but I do appreciate your comment. I used your comment as a template for the general environmentalist anathema in third-world nations like India against development which disproportionately helps the poor. The upper socio-economic classes everywhere are against further development be it the home owners of SF who rail against high density housing, the mansion owners of nantucket who hate off shore windmills, the woke classes of Mumbai who protest the cutting of 300 trees to stop development of a metro line which will disproportionately help the mass-transit commuting poor.

Sustainability - that vague bogey of the anti-development movement. Oft used but never defined.

I am not too different than you. I would love the earth to be pristine so when I visit distant locales I can enjoy untouched panoramas. I just value the quality of the life of the locals more than my view.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#102
post #99
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would 5g service be a better solution?

Everyone has wifi enabled hardware to use as a client, no one has 5g hardware, so no?

In 1000 days everyone will have 5g service on their phones

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a loaded comment that makes a lot of assumptions about me. I am not against connectivity or improving the life of people there, a lot of these areas are already connected by metalled road. What was happening when I was traveling there was widening of the roads indiscriminately, if you talk to people there or even read some of the articles I have linked, there isn't much benefit that local people are seein…

Sentences like this betray your intent: What was happening when I was traveling there was widening of the roads indiscriminately Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately . or there isn't much benefit that local people are seeing because of this. How long did you wait before you polled the locals for benefits? What timeline in your opinion is valid for be…

> Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately.

When I used the word indiscriminate, there was a specific purpose to it. It doesn't have to be that the engineers or planners don't know the better way to do it. It just might be that they choose to pick the cheapest way they can get away with, or do you deny that in developing countries corruption is not high and implementation of laws is not lax.

I have specifically mentioned examples in one of the other replies of things that they have done indiscriminately. Filling up narrow valleys with debris or destroying vegetation below the road slope by just leaving the debris there certainly isn't smart; nor is cutting slopes in the cheapest way to leave them prone to landslides.

There are ways to activley manage it which have been employed throughout the world.

As I said, even when I had searched in the past the media coverage on this was poor which is surprising. But here are few links which discuss the issues I mentioned in the comment.

- https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/jul/21/char-dha...

- https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/char-dham-na...

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#104
post #102
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has wifi enabled hardware to use as a client, no one has 5g hardware, so no?

In 1000 days everyone will have 5g service on their phones

Many people in first world countries will. Some people in first world countries and probably most in Indian villages don't even have 4g yet. So I doubt that in 1000 days they will have 5g when we are barely producing any devices today with that capability.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#105
post #104
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1000 days everyone will have 5g service on their phones

Many people in first world countries will. Some people in first world countries and probably most in Indian villages don't even have 4g yet. So I doubt that in 1000 days they will have 5g when we are barely producing any devices today with that capability.

The reason they don't have 4g now is mostly because there's no 4g service, not because people can't afford 4g enabled phones. I'm pretty sure by now 4g phones are just as cheap as 3g phones.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sentences like this betray your intent: What was happening when I was traveling there was widening of the roads indiscriminately Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately . or there isn't much benefit that local people are seeing because of this. How long did you wait before you polled the locals for benefits? What timeline in your opinion is valid for be…

> Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately. When I used the word indiscriminate, there was a specific purpose to it. It doesn't have to be that the engineers or planners don't know the better way to do it. It just might be that they choose to pick the cheapest way they can get away with, or do you deny that in developing countries corruption is not high…

You are playing whack-a-mole here.

It just might be that they choose to pick the cheapest way they can get away with,

Of course you know the most optimal trade-off between costs, quality and the environment not folks who are building thousands of miles of roadway every year.

do you deny that in developing countries corruption is not high and implementation of laws is not lax.

Straw man. There is corruption everywhere even in the west. Because there is corruption, nothing should happen.

Filling up narrow valleys with debris or destroying vegetation below the road slope by just leaving the debris there certainly isn't smart; nor is cutting slopes in the cheapest way to leave them prone to landslides.

You know a better way? How do you know dumping it in the valley below is worse than carting it off and dumping it in a remote valley. Do you have data showing where it should be dumped? Have you talked to any transportation engineers. Let me allow that it is worse and causes landslides. Are those landslides worse than having wider safer roads?

Your arguments have too much innuendo, conjecture because you have an defacto ideological position. You are fundamentally opposed to all development as it no longer serves your needs.

Just ponder that.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#107

It's just a political rally shallow statement. Nothing else. Few years ago, there was a big hoopla about making India superpower by 2020. We all know where that is.

Aim at the stars, atleast you will land on the moon. That's how current govt things goes.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately. When I used the word indiscriminate, there was a specific purpose to it. It doesn't have to be that the engineers or planners don't know the better way to do it. It just might be that they choose to pick the cheapest way they can get away with, or do you deny that in developing countries corruption is not high…

You are playing whack-a-mole here. It just might be that they choose to pick the cheapest way they can get away with , Of course you know the most optimal trade-off between costs, quality and the environment not folks who are building thousands of miles of roadway every year. do you deny that in developing countries corruption is not high and implementation of laws is not lax. Straw man. There is corruption everywher…

It seems futile to discuss this with you. All you have done is, counter arguments with counter questions while never addressing the issue. I chose to reply once hoping that it would be constructive, but it isn't.

If all both of us are going to do is counter questions with more questions and just refute the arguments entirely by questioning the other person's knowledge and research boosted by our own biases just to prove oneself right, the whole discussion becomes a non sequitur. For instance, you don't even know the dumping this is something an actual engineer working there told me about, the decision wasn't upto him, alas. You see, while backpacking one thing I make a point to do is to talk to locals.

Additionally, the landslide vs road widening argument. Things are not binary in real world, it is not like one has to exist at the cost of other.

While accusing me for having an ideological position which you know nothing about, you are conveniently ignoring yours. In no way, I have opposed "development" anywhere in the thread, it should definitely be at balance with other things and definitely not indiscriminate like I saw.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#109
post #105
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people in first world countries will. Some people in first world countries and probably most in Indian villages don't even have 4g yet. So I doubt that in 1000 days they will have 5g when we are barely producing any devices today with that capability.

The reason they don't have 4g now is mostly because there's no 4g service, not because people can't afford 4g enabled phones. I'm pretty sure by now 4g phones are just as cheap as 3g phones.

New phones, yes. But many people don't have new phones. Especially in poorer places.

1000 days if substantially shorter than the lifecycle of phone models. New cheap phones today don't have 5g, you see the timing issue?

Post reply on HN