Police raid a cyber cafe in a drive against the cosy cabins being used by couples looking for privacy in Ranchi. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, Sept. 1: The city experienced an IT boom in the form of cyber caf?s in the late 1990s. But it tells a different story today.

The technology was new and youths were the main users of the technology for chatting, though the costs were high.

However with the intervention of broadband in the city two years ago, the costs have come down. But the conventional cyber caf?s face a reduced turn up.

The cyber caf?s, of late, have also come to the limelight for sleaze dealings and have become a hub for youths to interact with the opposite sex. Police, on the other hand, feel that the cyber caf? owners use the space to make money out of these deals.

Recently a cyber caf?, Prince Cyber Caf?, was raided and eight youths, including four girls, were arrested.

The price of surfing, meanwhile, has reduced from Rs 100 per hour to Rs 20 per hour. The normal cafes, to lure customers, have even brought down the rates to Rs 5 per hour. Broadband owners are, however, claiming that they are taking extra precautions not to allow any untoward incidents.

?This is a fact that cyber caf?s are running at a loss nowadays. There are two reasons for this, one has to do with viruses and other is that the dial-up connection is too slow. We are still into the business because there are not many broadband cyber caf?s in the city and because we also have a photocopying and printing business,? said a cyber caf? owner in Lalpur.

The cyber caf?s have a deserted look these days and one can see notices, such as ?CBSC results available here?, ?JPSC results available here?, hung outside these caf?s.

Most of the cyber caf?s in the city have high-rise cabins, the reason for which is provided as privacy. One of the most prominent buildings on Kutchery Road houses at least two cyber caf?s with high cabins.

Surendra Pal, a student of St Xavier?s College, said: ?Many changes have come in the last 10 years since the Internet was introduced commercially in the city. Besides the cost, the curiosity factor too has decreased. Now even school students know what chatting and surfing means and they utilise the services. The cyber caf?s, in order to make more money, use a single line telephone to run more than 20 systems, which makes them slow. Besides, the broadband revolution has taken the city by storm. The system is very fast as the data are transferred through the satellite.?

The caf?s have low-speed connections in comparison to broadband. While broadband has a speed of 64 kilobytes per second (kbps), the normal cyber caf?s claim to have a speed of 56 kbps, but due to many terminals attached to it, the comes down to 10 to 15 kbps. Many cafes on Main Road, Harmu, Hinoo, Doranda, North and South offices have pulled their shutters down.

While there are some who have converted cyber caf?s to computer training institutes with internet facilities. There are other former cyber caf? owners who have moved to hardware sales.

Vinod Srivastava, a computer engineer, said: ?Chatting is out now, as people resort to web chat using web cameras, which is only possible using broadband. The net can now be used for more than just chatting, such as downloading heavier files in minutes, music, film clips, ring tones, mobile screen savers and games, which was not possible earlier. People don?t think of investing in the cyber caf? business anymore.?