Tall Men and Long Strides

The traditional method of judging a nation’s telecom progress and ranking
has been to look at the density of mobiles, telephones, Internet access, and the
like per 100 people. Based on this measure, India has taken rapid strides in the
past few years in the mobile phones segment. The growth in the fixed line
segments and Internet access have been good, but not spectacular. While the
country takes justifiable pride in this acceleration of telecom access, we need
to keep the bigger picture in mind.

A study by the International Telecom Union (ITU) provides a different way of
measuring the digital readiness of a country. It measures this on five
categories with eight indicators built into them. Each category has an index
computed on the basis of the indicators and a weighted average gives the overall
digital access index (DAI) for the country. How far does India have to go?

SHYAM MALHOTRA

The first category is infrastructure as indicated by fixed telephonesubscribers and mobile cellular subscribers per hundred people. India has fourtelephone subscribers and 1.8 mobile subscribers per 100 people. Sweden is thehighest on fixed lines with 65.2 lines per 100 inhabitants, while Taiwan is thehighest on mobile lines with 106.4 lines per 100 inhabitants. The world averagesare 18.84 and 25.89 respectively. The infrastructure index is 0.04 for Indiawith Taiwan being the highest at 0.98. China’s index is 0.22.

The second category is affordability based on Internet access cost as apercentage of per capita income. Here, India scores 21.90 percent with thelowest being 0.2 and the credit going to Hong Kong. The affordability index ascomputed here for India is 0.78. A much more impressive performance than ininfrastructure.

The next category is quality of access as measured by the number of broadbandsubscribers and the international Internet bandwidth available in the country.The Internet bandwidth per 100 people for India is 1.6 with 8991.7 being thehighest in Switzerland. Broadband subscribers amount to virtually zero in India(too small to be reported) with the highest being 21.9 per 100 inhabitants inKorea. On the overall index as computed from this data, India scores 0.18 withthe highest being Korea at 0.74.

This is followed by knowledge base of the country as measured by literacylevels and school enrolment. Here, India is reported to be 58 percent and 56percent respectively, with the highest being close to 100 percent in manycountries. The index on this basis for India is 0.57 with 0.99 being the highestin many countries.

The last is the usage as measured by Internet users. The highest here isIceland with 64.9 users per 100 inhabitants with India being 1.6. The worldaverage is 11.93 and the index score for India is 0.02 with the highest being0.76. India’s overall DAI is 0.32 while the world average is 0.42. Sweden hasthe highest score with an index of 0.85. Data miners can get all the data at www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/dai/index.html.

But the snapshot is clear.

n Just one set of parameters isnot enough. Truly digital economies" everyone can create, access,
utilize and share information and knowledge" as stated in the World Telecom
Development Report will have to focus on many parameters.

That is a far greater
challenge than mere provisioning of mobile phones. An integrated approach is
needed.

n Each category has different ‘leaders’
indicating that there is a high diversity in what different countries have been
able to achieve. No one leads in all and no one is at the bottom for all
indicators. Clearly, the global digital revolution is not homogeneous. It is
also unlikely to become homogeneous soon.

n India gains on the
affordability front and, considering its size, is decently placed on the
knowledge front. It loses heavily in the quality area. Internet access has
somehow got lost in the great mobile boom, because of infrastructure and
literacy. The lack of vernacular interfaces has also contributed to this. While
the mobile revolution helps everyone talk, we cannot share all information and
knowledge by talking alone. Internet usage is essential for that and this is
clearly a weak area.

n It also loses heavily on the
quality front. It can be argued that basic connectivity has to be built first.
But one would do well to remember that the great catch-up leap that we want to
achieve will not happen in this manner. That needs being right there up front
with the rest of the world. Many knowledge sharing applications cannot happen
without adequate bandwidth.

n Overall, India is ranked at 119
out of 178 countries. For a country aspiring to be a developed country and a
shining one, that is simply not enough.

Notwithstanding the long road ahead one can without hesitation say that the
achievements of the last few years in telecom make one stand tall. That should
help the future strides becoming longer and faster.

Shyam Malhotra

Editor-In-Chief, VOICE&DATA