INTERNATIONAL GATEWAY: The Gates Open Up

In a recent FICCI annual session, the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said, “There are problems to be resolved in the implementation of the ISP policy for achieving rapid spread of the Internet in India, especially through liberalization of the gateway policy. A group under the chairmanship of finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, will be constituted to quickly address these issues.” Also responding to a statement made by FICCI president, Sudhir Jalan, that “if any government can grapple with these challenges, your government can”, he said, “To this, I can only respond by saying that, our government will.” In October 1998, the revered minister had made a statement from a similar forum in
Bangalore that the ISP policy would be announced within 15 days. And
it was!

For private ISP personnel present in the session, it was a satisfying morning. About 20 of them had been waiting for Department of Telecom (DoT) to allow them to set up their own private international gateways. Their long wait seemed like coming to an end. To add to their hopes, there was this letter from DoT dated 30 November. It said, “Your proposal is being examined in consultation with the concerned agencies. It is expected that this exercise would be complete by the third week of December 1999.” 

Though the wait is not over, many are hoping that they will be given the permission at least by January 2000. 

The Bottleneck

The issue of gateway dates back to the announcement of the Internet policy. Clause 7.1 of Condition 7, Schedule C of the ISP licence agreement reads as, “... Private ISPs are allowed to provide such international gateways after obtaining security clearance for which the interface of the ISPs shall only be with the Telecom Authority.” This liberal approach had symbolized the spirit and objective of the policy. Though the country has today about 200 ISP licences issued and 50 of them operational, the current subscriber base of 5 lakh has not been encouraging enough if we are to meet the target of 2 million by 2000, set by the government. One of the reasons ISPs have not been able to generate better demand is that the quality of Internet access they provide has been poor. The cost of access is quite high, and they have not been able to set up services and expand as quickly as they would have wanted. 

According to the ISPs, the main bottleneck is in getting connected to the Internet through VSNL and DoT. First, the process of leasing an international leased-line takes too long by international standards. Second, there is no guarantee on the quality of bandwidth being provided–no Quality of Service (QoS), no Service Level Agreements (SLA), as the industry understands it. Third, the bandwidth being provided is expensive. 

So, right from the beginning, ISPs like Satyam Infoway knew that they could not depend on VSNL for long. There were complaints after complaints by the operators. The ISPs also did not like the idea of depending for bandwidth on the same ISP that they were competing against. 

The demand for international gateway became more and more intense. Some of the ISPs were known to have met the concerned DoT officials in this regard. One of the persons asked the official that he be permitted to set up an international gateway. The official asked the person to apply for one. The conversation ended up in a playful mood. Both the parties did not know how to proceed further! Probably, the author of the ISP policy in DoT had never thought that ISPs would so soon come back with a proposal to set up an independent gateway. Nothing was mentioned about how the security clearances would be given and how long it would take. 

That jocular mood did not last long. It took DoT about 10 months to release a guideline for applying for setting up international gateways. And when the guidelines came, Clause 4 of the General Conditions said, “Gateway providers will apply to the Telecom Authority for bandwidth” giving another fright to the ISPs. However, as many as 18 companies applied for setting up their own gateways. Since then it has been three months, yet, no clearance has been given. Now battle lines were clearly drawn. Private ISPs accused DoT of being partial. They accuse DoT of trying to buy time for itself and VSNL, the two providers of international bandwidth to ISPs. 

Just a Matter of Time

Coming back to the present, there is no doubt a lot of pressure from different direction on DoT to let go off this
monopoly. The one thing that has consistently worked in the favour for
the Internet sector is that Internet is seen as a vehicle on which the success of the Indian IT industry will ride. 

So, there is high sensitivity and interest when it comes to the Internet.
When the ISPs recently got the wind of a move by DoT to put up some recommendations before the Telecom Commission (one of the recommendations being to preferentialize the use of INSAT and Intelsat for the gateway purpose), ISPs were left with no other option than to approach TRAI, the PMO, and ministry of IT for redressal. The ISPs made their submission asking the bodies to help in ensuring that DoT implements the Internet policy in both letter and spirit. 

Though the issue of satellite usage might have been solved, judging from a recent statement made by PS Saran, secretary, DTS, that ISPs and VSAT operators would be allowed to use any foreign satellite and any frequency band, the fate of other recommendations is not yet known. The ISPs are not taking any chances, however. They also have demanded that they be allowed to buy under-sea fibre cables directly from international companies.

As of now, nobody outside the government really knows in what form, and under what conditions, will the ISPs be allowed to set up their own international gateways. But, as DoT is busy “working out the modalities,” the private ISPs have a feeling that their proposals will get through very soon. They are of the opinion that the PMO is taking special interest. And when the PMO starts taking interest, it is just a matter of time. Most ISPs feel that the date of reckoning is somewhere in January 2000.