Dot Wakes Up To The Broadband State

[Honest 836]

DoT wakes up to the broadband state

NEW DELHI: The department of telecom (DoT) has acknowledged the failure of its broadband policy and is seeking industry inputs to rescript the sector’s growth path.

Broadband and Internet is one of the worst performing sectors under the DoT, contrasting sharply with the tremendous success achieved in mobile telephony which is clocking a near 8 to 10 million subscribers every month.

The policy collapse is illustrated by the fact that at the end of 2007 India barely reached 10.36 million Internet subscribers against the target of 18 million, while broadband penetration touched 3.13 million against the target of 9 million subscribers.

The DoT on Thursday held a meeting with Reliance, Tatas, Bharti, AT&T and Sify to discuss the policy challenges preventing the growth of broadband in India. Mobile phone industry associations COAI and AUSPI were also present.

The significance of this discussion is that this is one of the first new initiatives undertaken by a new set of bureaucrats who came into office six months ago.

Naresh Ajwani, president consumer, Sify, said, “The government needs to revisit the ecosystem for driving broadband penetration. This includes issues of last mile unbundling, ISP’s viability, cost of access terminals, operational challenges and restrictions faced by ISP’s in the normal course of business.”

[santhoshavanoor 7]

Why Dot not issuing the spectrum to operators? With WiMAX operators can achieve more customers even in remote areas also where cabling will become more costlier. Actually I'm waiting for WiMAX technology implementing in India

[vmsanghrajka 0]

They should resolve last-mile connectivity issue or else go for Wi-Max.. Private operators should be allowed to use BSNL infrastructure, which will foster better service at reasonable rates..

[sougatadc 358]

Even after BSNL started giving Broadband of `upto' 2Mbps, the target is quite far in many fronts. Its unlimited connection is limited to 256 Kbps only. And although the tariff has come down, it is quite high compared to world leaders. With speed still low vis-a-vis tariff, the penetration level of Broadband will take time.

Reduce tariff, increase speed, see the surge in user base! This must be the tag line after the mobile boom in India.

[raccoon 53]

True. But many pvt. operators are much worse. For eg. was looking at a YOU Telecom leaflet v recently, and it had un- limited connections at a measly 96 kbps or whereabouts. Broadband is a joke in India...

[Sadikk 301]

96kbps is not broadband in first place.

india needs fast and cheap BB for real economy boom, its a secret of china's economy boom.

[KumaarShah 143]

BSNL indeed is 'Best Hain Mere Liye' All other operators are only joking. Maybe Airtel or RCOM BB may be better, but I cannot comment on them.

[@ksh@T 20]

well in the starting of My BSNL BB i was same as KumaarShah but now . . .duno knw what happened to it download speeds at rapidshare is 10K and other just 25K-50K . . .

[situ1962 21]

Here in odisha bsnl is the only BB provides.so there is no competition.the speed is ok.but the real problem is the frequent breakdowns.the network breaks down for days togather.

[Honest 836]

Net, broadband fail to catch up with mobile growth

6 Sep, 2008, 1401 hrs IST, ET

NEW DELHI: The debate over Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum auctions and internet telephony comes at a time when global organisations and analysts are painting a contrasting picture of the Indian telecom and IT sectors.

Recent International Telecommunication Union (ITU) data reveals that the success of India’s telecom revolution is restricted to mobile voice with very little to showcase in fixed line and internet access, or high-speed broadband. For a country that is the global IT and ITeS capital or the world's back office, its own internet penetration remains one of the lowest in the world.

Forecasts are equally uninspiring, projecting high-speed internet access to remain abysmal till 2012.

Internet broadband penetration will limp along to eventually reach a measly 3.9 connections for every 100 citizens by 2012. Even though internet users may be multiple times higher, actual broadband penetration will not exceed 18.1 million at the beginning of the next decade. In contrast, mobile telephony will add as many as 350 million subscribers during this five-year period to end at roughly 615 million by mid 2012.

These forecasts fall short of the government's conservative target of 20 million high-speed internet subscribers by 2010-end . India's broadband penetration is roughly 4.5 million subscribers. Even with a 300% growth rate over the next five years, the sector will fall short of the 50 million mark by 2012.

“The weak numbers can be attributed to a slew of policy failures including inadequacy of fixed line infrastructure, a barely profitable ISP (internet service provider) business, and low domestic PC penetration,” says Rajesh Chharia, president, ISP Association of India. It is learnt that ISPs are actively considering a strong representation to the government on these issues. Weak broadband penetration could severely slow down overall telecom growth, crippling India's ISPs in the process. It will also hurt ambitious government programmes, such as e-governance , e-commerce , telemedicine and e-education all of which are dependent on high-speed broadband internet access.

This gloomy environment has prompted telecom regulator Trai to recommend internet telephony for ISPs as it believes this has the potential of becoming the killer application that will kickstart growth.

However, the uncertainty of DoT accepting Trai’s recommendations or succumbing to the interests of existing mobile operators to slap an additional entry fee for ISPs is a shadow over the sector. DoT officials have been confusing, vacillating between welcoming Trai’s recommendations and airing level playing field concerns.

“A policy overhaul to include concepts like shared PCs, enhanced scope of services and expanding e-governance applications is critical for the growth of the sector,” says Naresh Ajwani, president, Sify.