Internet Connection - At Last !!

At long last I got my broadband connection through Omantel a couple of days back. I had applied for the same on 19 January 2009. This was made possible by some intense follow up by my colleagues in our telecon dept as well as some lobbying by friends. While I was cribbing about this state of affairs to the guys who had come to install the peripherals, all the response I could elicit was "Mabrook" ( which means "मुबारक हो !" or "Congratulations"). It seems folks who had applied for a home connection as far back in August 2008 are yet to get it.

The ADSL modem (which I had to purchase by paying cash) cost 26 Rials (or Rs 3380/-), installation cost is 10 Rials and the monthly rental is 12 Rials. Wait, the best is yet to come, the icing on the cake is the free download/upload I get. I am entitled to a grand 1 GB of free download/upload per MONTH !! Yes, you read that right - 1GB per month. Beyond that I will be charged at 1 Rial per GB of download/upload. Even e-mail attachments count towards this.

The other fantastic discovery I made is that a host of websites are blocked (not just the 'pondy' ones, which can be expected). Voice over Internet Telephony (VoIP) sites like 'skype' are also blocked (there go my dreams of anticipated long chats with my better half !)

Some friends here who are enjoying this luxury tell me that their bills are in the range of 30 Rials per month if they behave themselves and refrain from spending too much time on the net.

All this is thanks to the monopoly of the sole service provider. Well, since beggars cannot be choosers, here I am, blogging from the cosy confines of my residence. It is better than trudging to the nearest cyber cafe, waiting for my turn on the PC and finally paying the exhorbitant fee and counting my steps back.