Curious, you might think as you read the title of this entry. But let me tell you, this is a very real issue in this city.
Wireless internet is a secret, hoarded treasure in this city. Restaurants arbitrarily deny you use of it some days and not others. They change their internet passwords every day, they turn it on and off depending on the hour, and instead of telling you to leave they will switch off the wifi without saying anything.
We also had a lovely series of interactions with Tata, one of the wireless companies, which promised unlimited internet use on one of their services when we wanted to buy a different one which was ACTUALLY unlimited. Apparently, they can only adjust plans around certain billing dates for our internet keys. As a result, my internet randomly still works while the other keys dont... I get closer and closer to using up my internet access every day too...
The politics of wifi. I never thought I would be talking about this. People use wifi to attract customers and then when there are many of them, they get rid of it. Sites in my guidebook that promised wifi no longer offer it.
When I was preparing to come to Bombay, I assumed it wouldnt be a problem. My first week here was a nightmarish quest through the entire city looking for somewhere to connect. I ended up at a sticky computer in a tiny cubicle in the back of an internet cafe alerting my parents that I had arrived, was fine, and my phone here doesnt really work.
For a country praised for its advancements in tech... this is surprising. We're in the financial capital of the country, and we couldnt find spaces to connect to the rest of the world.
I refer to this as the politics of wifi, because it is tied in with the separation of so many things again. All of the students in my class are middle class Indian college students. Most of them go home and have wifi in their homes.
As a foreigner seeking wifi to finish research projects, never has my time on this machine been so prized and so carefully planned out. The divide between the work I need to get done through online sources and the work I am able to get done is growing every day. I am one of the lucky ones, in that my project and proposal are based mostly on my field work. My research is outside, physically experiencing the space and talking to people. If I didnt have that, I'm not sure what else I would do.
I think we've all realized how dependent we've become on internet access for information. I enjoy coming home in the evenings and scanning through the newspapers I read every day for things I want to learn more about or my topics of choice. Here the choice doesnt really exist.
I spent last summer advocating for internet based services and education in rural areas... but that wouldnt work here even in the city. When anyone outside of the middle class, who can go to a tata store and work out some negotiated and semi-functional deal with them, wants to use internet... where do they go? Where are they introduced to it?
It's made me want to learn more about access in schools, especially in Dharavi where I suspect there is limited infrastructure for these services. Then again, it always surprises me.
Wireless internet is a secret, hoarded treasure in this city. Restaurants arbitrarily deny you use of it some days and not others. They change their internet passwords every day, they turn it on and off depending on the hour, and instead of telling you to leave they will switch off the wifi without saying anything.
We also had a lovely series of interactions with Tata, one of the wireless companies, which promised unlimited internet use on one of their services when we wanted to buy a different one which was ACTUALLY unlimited. Apparently, they can only adjust plans around certain billing dates for our internet keys. As a result, my internet randomly still works while the other keys dont... I get closer and closer to using up my internet access every day too...
The politics of wifi. I never thought I would be talking about this. People use wifi to attract customers and then when there are many of them, they get rid of it. Sites in my guidebook that promised wifi no longer offer it.
When I was preparing to come to Bombay, I assumed it wouldnt be a problem. My first week here was a nightmarish quest through the entire city looking for somewhere to connect. I ended up at a sticky computer in a tiny cubicle in the back of an internet cafe alerting my parents that I had arrived, was fine, and my phone here doesnt really work.
For a country praised for its advancements in tech... this is surprising. We're in the financial capital of the country, and we couldnt find spaces to connect to the rest of the world.
I refer to this as the politics of wifi, because it is tied in with the separation of so many things again. All of the students in my class are middle class Indian college students. Most of them go home and have wifi in their homes.
As a foreigner seeking wifi to finish research projects, never has my time on this machine been so prized and so carefully planned out. The divide between the work I need to get done through online sources and the work I am able to get done is growing every day. I am one of the lucky ones, in that my project and proposal are based mostly on my field work. My research is outside, physically experiencing the space and talking to people. If I didnt have that, I'm not sure what else I would do.
I think we've all realized how dependent we've become on internet access for information. I enjoy coming home in the evenings and scanning through the newspapers I read every day for things I want to learn more about or my topics of choice. Here the choice doesnt really exist.
I spent last summer advocating for internet based services and education in rural areas... but that wouldnt work here even in the city. When anyone outside of the middle class, who can go to a tata store and work out some negotiated and semi-functional deal with them, wants to use internet... where do they go? Where are they introduced to it?
It's made me want to learn more about access in schools, especially in Dharavi where I suspect there is limited infrastructure for these services. Then again, it always surprises me.
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