An interview with Iqara's CEO

An interesting interview with Iqara's CEO where he talks about the present state of broadband in India.

One of your competitors is offering modems free and does not charge for uploads whereas you rent the modem for Rs99 per month and charge for uploads.

Today a cable modem costs around Rs1,500. We expect it to go down further. When that happens we may offer the modem free. Speaking of the free modem, the offer is only for select subscribers. Offering free modems does not make economical sense in the current situation.

The average cost of acquiring a customer works out to Rs2,500, that is, five months of average revenue. An ISP would require a minimum of five months to recover the subscriber acquisition cost. If the subscriber leaves the network in three months then the ISP loses heavily. Ours is the only cable network in the country that is 100 per cent two way. It helps in rapid scaling up.

Neatly side-stepped :S

Full story: Domain-b.