World’s richest cricket body, BCCI, launches their website

Can you believe the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did not have a website till now? In Nov 2007 BCCI invited bids for building their website,

Under this ITT (invitation to tender), the wining bidder will be required to perform the functions of designing, developing, hosting and operating the bets of breed web portal,’ Secretary Niranjan Shah said in the tender notice being published in newspapers.

The bid document can be acquired at a non-refundable and non-adjustable amount of Rs.500,000 from the BCCI headquarters at the Wankhede Stadium here from Thursday.

‘The project scope includes (but is not limited to):

1. Exploiting existing content to create packages for driving subscription revenues,
2. Creating new content,
3. Hosting, production and ongoing operations of the portal,
4. Generating traffic, users and revenues to the site,
5. Maintaining the books of accounts and providing detailed information regarding all the revenues whenever requested by the BCCI management,’ says the tender notice.

The bidding price was approximately $50m for 3 years. “Experts” had estimated a revenue potential of $15m a year from the portal. One of the articles stated “None of the big boys - Reliance, Tata..were interested”. Finally Global Cricket Ventures (I could not find their URL, at least not easily) won the tender to build the website.

Looks like they have great plans and know what needs to go on website. But what about the domainname? bcci.tv !! What were they thinking? BCCI is the richest sports body in India and possibly one of the richest in the world. Could they not afford to buy bcci.com or bcci.in - both are parked domains.

I subscribed to their mailing list. It is smooth mainly because the mailing list part has been outsourced (to mailchimp.com). But were you aware BCCI is “D”ubai based ? Well that is what you see on the confirmation pages of mailing list,

The look and feel of the site is simple and clean. I think it will please the readers. The mobile part seems to be completely missing. Reports say that the site has many errors (wrong links etc). I think that was very much avoidable but you can get away in the online world by saying it is “Beta” version

Kudos to Govt, they were quick in awarding Tendulkar

Recently British Prime Minister Gordon Brown [Video] suggested that Sachin Tendulkar might soon be honoured with knighthood, making him the first Indian player to receive the title. That very night all TV channels went gungho about calling India’s favorite cricketer “Sir Sachin Tendulkar”. One of the topics of discussion was “Should India award its civilian awards to foreigners?” It was interesting to see what a British journalist had to say. He doubted if any of our Padmashree awards would have any value in UK. At the same time he said very few Britishers cared about the “Sir” title. Most Indians were not in favor of the govt waiving the import duty on his Ferrari car, he could easily afford to pay the tax.

I guess the Indian government was caught off guard, to avoid any embarrassment they quickly awarded the prestigious Padma Vibhushan to Sachin. Good to see other deserving people from sports being recognized by the Govt (Vishwanathan Anand).

Karnataka’s favorite icon, Mr. Narayana Murthy, too was included in the list. Hmm..he should check out the Rashtrapati Bhavan when he goes to receive the award. After all, isn’t that awesome building his next home

What is 3G? Does India need it?

Current WAP speed in India is nothing great but it has improved. I understand from my friends who are experts in telecom that you cannot improve the speed performance of WAP any further on a GSM network (which is 2G). I am told only 3G can improve things. So what is 3G?

Ex-Telecom Minister Dayanadi Maran was in the verge of releasing the 3G guidelines in India but he was shown the door. After the new Telecom Minister took over there was some talk about India going with 2.5G, which enables high-speed data transfer over upgraded existing 2G networks.

The GSM and CDMA networks are classed as second generation while the defunct analogue network was the first of the mobile network generations.

3G, or third generation, is the generic term used for the next generation of mobile communications systems. The new systems will enhance the services available today and offer multimedia and internet access and the ability to view video footage.

With a 3G phone and access to the 3G network you can send and receive video calls, watch live TV, access the internet, receive emails and download music tracks, as well as the usual voice call and messaging services found on a mobile phone.

Technically, the main difference between 3G and 2G networks is how quickly data can be sent and received. 3G networks can send data up to 40 times the rates of earlier digital networks, which means that in addition to audio, graphics and text, 3G customers can also send and receive video content, in 3G coverage areas. They provide service at 5-10 Mb per second.

3G was introduced in the United States early in 2002. By late 2004, it was finally providing transmission speeds sufficient to handle full-motion video, albeit over short periods of time (15 seconds to three minutes, in most cases). The third generation technology used in the UK is called UMTS. These services operate at 2100 MHz. (2.1GHz).

Upgrading to 3G will be an expensive affair for all telcos. All telco hardware vendors would have another reason to drool in India!

While we are still not sure when India will get 3G, the technology has already moved on to “beyond 3G” or “4G”. A 4G system will be able to provide a comprehensive IP solution where voice, data and streamed multimedia can be given to users on an “Anytime, Anywhere” basis, and at higher data rates than previous generations.

For any telco to offer 3G the government has to allocate the spectrum. Allocation of spectrum is becoming a mess but ultimately it will be solved (after all it cannot be more complex than pleasing the Left in the govt!!).

I personally believe mobile users in India will have a far better experience after 3G becomes a reality.