Broadband penetration in India – Govt. throws another bait?
Did you know that Indian govt. declared 2007 to be the “Year of Broadband”? Like plethora of other promises, they forgot this one too!
Forget about the penetration, India stands nowhere as far as Broadband speed is concerned.
Few stats:
- As of August 2007, the total broadband connection in India was only 2.56 million (projected figures for 2007 = 9 million)
- The govt.’s earlier projection was to get 3 million subscribers by 2005!.
And that means, we are missing the projected numbers only by 2 years!
Indian govt., finally woke up and has announced using power distribution lines to increase the adoption/distribution of broadband (i.e. powerbrand/power-line technology)
The department of information technology (DIT) is in talks with some of the country’s top technical institutions to evolve technology that would make transmission of broadband-over-power line (BPL) a viable option.
“We have received proposals from some of the leading technical institutions in the country in this regard and the department would allocate some funds to the institutes for carrying out the research and development work to promote broadband penetration,” an official in the DIT said. [source]
Given the speed with which Indian Institutes prefer to R over D (i.e.more research and less development), I am not too sure whether India will still achieve the projected numbers (i.e. 9 million by 2007).
Instead of relying on DIT to get the powerbrand technology, broadband penetration needs to address other important issues, like:
- Bringing down the PC cost
- Decrease cost per line
- Deploy AWS (Advanced Wireless Systems), i.e. 3G/WiMAX and WiFi [read CII-BDA report]
Unless govt. fixes these core issues, I don’t see any point in having high hopes (and screaming from rooftop that broadband penetration is all set to happen).
What’s your take?
Recommended Read: Detailed Analysis of TRAI’s report on Broadband penetration in India
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Related posts:
- Govt’s another bait to Rural India – Subsidize the Broadband connection by 50%
- TRAI’s report on Indian Telecom Industry and the dismal broadband penetration in India
- Mobile Internet users 14 times more than the broadband users
- Broadband connectivity scorecard- India manages to beat Nigeria !
- India manages to beat Egypt, Nigeria in Broadband Connectivity [sad state]
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
Major concern is the Cost and Connectivity. Most of the time i dont have net connection on Sat and Sunday.
As Tata introduced wireless USB internet, its connectivity is far slower than 64kbs line which they call broadband [according to TRAI 256kbs is the min to call broadband].
Most of the broadband ads are false marketing. and companies are not able to keep the pace of supply-demand equation.
It will take time more than expected to reach the estimated value.
60Mbps for Japan. is that correct?
Bettering the current infrastructure is a better approach than investing in Research, the Development for which will happen only years later. But I think, working on both fronts will do more good in the times to come!
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Hi Guys
Time has come, and its very near to reach the Dream Number of Broad Band Users.
Tata Communications ( Earlier Tata VSNL ) has launched WIMAX, which is boon technology to India. Though Reliance couldnt roll it out in a successfull way.
It working great , i am using from about two months in bangalore.
They havent officially launched it though
Hope for the best
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