The Impediments

The Internet subscriber base in India has been growing at therate of around 300 percent per year. In spite of that the base figure ofInternet subscriber is around 1.2 million, which is a very small figure incomparison to other developing economies of the world. It is projected that inthe year 2001, this figure would go up to 2 million and Internet user base wouldbe 16 million. To achieve this figure and maintain consistent subscriber base inthe future, India will have to provide a better telecom infrastructure.Additionally, the cost of PC has to be brought down to an affordable level andadequate bandwidth must be made available to support corporate application likeVPN, intranet, extranet, videoconferencing, and e-mail.

Telecom Infrastructure

DTS has the monopoly in basic services in most of the circlesand private basic operators are present only in a limited way in few of thecities. Some of the basic private operators are not in a position to provideleased-line or ISDN connectivity to corporates as they are in the process oflaying the infrastructure for broadband and Internet services. In states whereDTS is operational, getting a leased-line for corporates is not an easy job,though they claim that they do not have any waiting list. Even, getting atelephone connection in a city like Delhi takes a long time. So one can wellimagine the time it would take for installing telephone line and leased-line insmaller cities (see the open letter from an ISP).

Bandwidth

The country uses an international bandwidth of 500 Mbpspresently but the requirement is 10 Gbps by 2000. VSNL is in the process ofacquiring over 500 Mbps during the next six months. Clearance for setting up of101 international gateways has been given by DoT and only a few of them haveactually started operating. The delay is due to more complicated processes ofgetting clearance from 13 agencies, SACFA, and others. Time taken to set upgateway after getting licence is about four to six months. The process beingcomplicated, it is very difficult to expand the service. Another problem on thegateway front is that the ISPs do not get an international bandwidth of morethan 2/8 Mbps on a single licence and for a single site as the concernedauthorities do not have monitoring equipment for higher capacities. Theunavailability of higher bandwidth restricts the expansion of services at a fastpace.

The recent government guidelines allowing submarine cablelanding station in India have given impetus to international bandwidth capacity.For national security consideration, certain areas like Punjab, J&K, northeastern states, border areas of Rajasthan, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, andcoastal areas of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu (excluding Chennai) have been keptoutside the permitted areas. This could cause some inconvenience to ISPsoperating here, as these areas have to take leased-lines from adjoining areas,which will take time.

On the submarine cable front, companies like Bharti, Dishnet,Caltiger, and others are in the process of laying cable that would beoperational in third quarter of 2001. Till such time as that, India will have tolive with it and applications using higher bandwidth will suffer.

High Cost of Access Devices

Cost of access devices including PC, which is the main deviceto access Internet in India, continues to be stagnant since the last couple ofyears. This has to change and the price has to be brought down for increasedpenetration in "B" and "C" class cities where Internet iscatching up and the growth rate is high.

The cost of other Internet access accessories like modems (cable and DSL) andset-top boxes are still high and this acts as a deterrent factor for the growthof Internet in India. Though WAP started with much hype in India and mobilephone was to
become a potent device to access Internet, in reality this has not happened dueto unavailability of cheap WAP phones.