Chandresh supervising the laying of the optical fibre cable.
Watching YouTube is often
vexing. Downloading is slow, the wheel appears time and again and much fun
fades in the waiting. Auroville’s telephone-based internet of 700-odd lines is
limited in capacity and unsuitable for high speed internet access. “The official
requirement is 2 Mbps [Megabits per second], but if you live far away from a
BSNL telephone exchange, the reality is 256 Kbps [Kilobits per second],” says
Chandresh. “The lack of a reliable and fast intranet is a major constraint.” Together with JV Avadhanulu,
popularly known as JV, he set out to do something about it. That was seven
years ago. The path was uphill, he says, not only because of dealing with
agencies outside Auroville, but also within Auroville where various working
groups showed a tepid interest at best. In March this year JV declared he had
had enough and left Auroville, to collaborate from a distance. Chandresh
continued. Today, their w...
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