Phew!
If you read the guidebooks on India, they all
talk about how Internet access is everywhere. This may be true, but what they
don't say is that many of the Internet cafes (which usually aren't cafes at all
but holes in the wall with a few Pentium IIs running Windows 98 and the slowest
"highspeed" connection you've ever seen) have never seen a laptop
before.
I just spent two hours walking around Ernakulam,
stopping in at least 5 different Internet shops, before I found one that was
willing to let me plug my laptop in. I think the problem is that most of them
have firewalls static IP addresses. Modern computers and highspeed connections
usually automatically identify the network, and the computer sets up its own IP
address, and just like that you're connected. The place in Fort Kochi that I
posted an entry from last week has a desk with a spare ethernet cable and all I
did was plug it in and I was connected.
Today, I finally found a guy who was
willing to walk me through the network settings process so that I could manually
enter the IP address, DNS, subnet mask, and a bunch of other numbers separated
by dots. So now I am connected and have to try to get as much done as possible.
For now, I thought I'd complain a little about that slowness with which India
seems to be adopting the Internet. Even in major cities, like Bangalore, where
Barista and Cafe Coffee Day advertise wireless networks, I've yet to find one
that is working. "System is down" is what I'm
told.
So, if we stay in our current
flat (which we may not, but more on that later), I am going to look into having
a landline installed so that we can get a DSL connection. It's a lot cheaper
than in the U.S., so it might just be worth it. At least I won't have to spend a
half a day wandering around trying to find someone who can get my laptop
connected.
Posted: Wed - March 22, 2006 at 09:49 PM