bid chronicles

It has been a while people, and I’m still in Dhaka. Luckily my sister has managed to score a Bluetooth Dongle so I can finally post all those pictures that I have been filling up my phone with. Here are a few things that are around Dhaka that has little or nothing to do with the original franchise.

And then there are the ones which are actually originals and are true to the chain.

Ok fine, the last image is a big blurry but it was pouring out there so I couldn’t really get a good shot. But you can see Colonel General don’t you?

And finally I just have to point this out since I didn’t know about Cyprus befure I met my friend from there at GATech. So here’s to Alper whose country is now a top educational destination in Bangladesh (apparently).

Ok, so I was wrong about certain parts of my previous ramble. From my recent trip to BCS Computer City I can tell that even if the concept of a LAN is missing around my friend and family, it must be there somewhere in this city. I reason I claim this is mostly due to the tens of consumer grade routers being sold. Though as I mentioned before, many of these low-end consumer routers are being used to provide “cable internet” in many areas. There were even a variety of wireless access points, bridges and routers available, which points to the fact that WiFi must be in somewhere.

What was really interesting was to see the easy avaibility of ASUS, BenQ and LiteON products. Since these are all Asian brands the ease of importing them and their price points makes them a very promising supplier. I even noticed an ASUS EeePC amoung the variety of laptops that are readily available. Also it is much fun to see all the Chinese knock-offs that you can find

As I continue working from Dhaka, while eagerly awaiting my visa, there are certain things that comes into view. The most interesting one being the fact that I still have a problem thinking of the first day of work at Sunday. Even though since everyone left for work I start working on a Sunday I keep thinking of it as a Monday. Suddenly Tuesdays seems like towards the beginning of the week instead of being in the middle of the work week.

One particular thing that has affected be a lot is the fact that in Bangladesh the weekend days are Friday and Saturday. Which would lead people think that I spend 3 days completely out of touch with my office in US. However, adding up the 10 hour time difference gives me an interesting disadvantage. Notably, by the time I wrap up my week on a Thursday here, people in Atlanta are just preparing to go to work on a fine Thursday morning. Which means that they still have 2 days to finish this week.

Similarly by the time they start working on Monday morning, I have already wrapped up two business days in the week. So it boils down to the fact that instead of being out of touch with the office for 3 days, I am infact only in contact with the office for 3 days. The rest 4 days are lost in weekends.

Interesting no?

Ah the internet then and now. Firstly let me admit to you that my life doesn’t work without a network. I need the internet. I’m probably addicted to it. But it’s not that I’m surfing everywhere and stuff. I’m just addicted to information, and there’s plenty of that online!

That aside, what I really wanted to tell you today was the changes in network technology in Bangladesh. What amazes me, is that WiFi hasn’t still hit mainstream in Bangladesh. Neither is LAN a big part of the culture. As you start looking deep into it, you realize that it doesn’t really make sense.

Besides spoilt brats like me, most people have only a computer at home. Prices of computers though cheap it isn’t cheap compared to other things. Most cases people cannot justify having more than 1 computer at home. What’s the point of a LAN at that moment? There’s one desktop with everything. What’s the point of having another power sucker running somewhere just to dish out a few files on the LAN.

As for Wireless is concerned, it’s pretty straight forward. Laptops cost a bundle to buy and tons more to maintain. On the other hand, desktops are pretty straight forward and tends to be a much cheaper for repairs. Swipe the bad card and wala! Simple, cheap and easy.

As for the internet itself, a lot has changed. Even though last time I was here cable internet was the big thing, what was actually happening was that the cost reduction was happening the same was as roommates would share internet. One guy gets the actual cable internet. He feeds it to his lovely router who dishes out 192.168.1.x IP address to all the people that guy sells the internet to. So what would happen is when everyone get online at the same time, the network would start to crawl. Not to mention the insane amount of firewall problems caused by the friendly router.

Nowadays, however, the playing field is very different. Shared cable internet has become dirt cheap while Wireless WAN has become the next big thing. EDGE modems are cheaper here than they are back in the USA and not to mention that you don’t have to sign your life away on a 2 year contract. Once you get past that hurdle, you can get 1Gb/month at a very reasonable price.

Granted it’s not HSDPA (3G) but hey we’re going WiMAX in a few month, baby! This is something I predicted 3 years back when I visited. It feels good to be right. Though it feels bad that I couldn’t be a big part of it. But hell. I still have time. May be I’ll bring LTE to Bangladesh at a later date

Dear Dairy,

It has been a while since I have written anything. I have not mentioned about the crazy time that I had to spend for the last few days. The wedding preparations, shopping everything had kept us all crazy busy. At the moment the house is almost empty. After tomorrow, all the guests will be gone.

I haven’t even had a chance to really enjoy my vacation yet and I have already started working from here while I await my visa. Gotta tell ya, this visa business is very annoying.

That’s it for today. Ttyl

LOL