The Hindu : Connecting India: `We are getting there'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 17, 2003

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Connecting India: `We are getting there'

By Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore May 16. We tend to be ranked 7th worldwide, for the number of fixed telephones in use and around 20th for mobile phones. In Internet usage we hover around the 15th place. But our sheer numbers are so huge and the challenges so formidable that any global `Top 10' — telecom-wise — these days, must include India. And when it comes to pace of change we are there among the front rankers: the number of mobile phones alone crossed 13.3 millions last month and the rate of growth has been so scorching that the numbers double every year. The number of fixed phones — 36 million at last count — sees slower growth but massive mileage of fibre optic cabling has just gone in the grounds, which will kick-start the growth any time now.

Today is World Telecom Day — and a time for national stocktaking. For India, the report card will say: The end is not yet in sight but the last year's progress has been commendable. There is another reason to sit back and reflect this year: 2003 marks 150 years of Indian telecommunications, which were born with telegraph services launched across a few cities 1853, less than 9 years after Samuel Morse invented the telegraph transmitter.

Today the national tele density — the number of telephones for every 100 citizens — is a whisker below 5. The number is brought down by the huge disparity between densities in the towns and villages — which vary by a factor of 10. But the sudden availability of `telephony on tap' — mostly through the efforts of mobile providers both BSNL and private sector — has created islands of excellence that are attracting the attention of the world's planners: Kerala which is a rural-urban melange has attained the nation's highest teledensity: over seven. In some districts like Malappuram, early mobile movers like Escotel as well as others like BPL, Airtel and BSNL managed to get such a firm toehold that the numbers of mobile users exceed fixed phone subscribers. Indeed a total phone count in Malappuram town shows more than one phone per head.

The past year has seen the Central Government pragmatically open up the telecom sector to the `garam hawa' of global technology: In April 2002 Internet telephony was legalised. In November the same year, the WiFi spectrum to exploit the 802.112b technology for wireless Internet access was decontrolled. Indian ingenuity has already begun putting as uniquely `desi' spin on these technologies and innovative applications that bridge the `digital divide' include the newly wireless -enabled versions of the Bangalore-developed hand held computer, ``Simputer'' as well as an IIT-Kanpur/Media Lab Asia project to extend the essentially short range WiFi technology to cover nearly 80 Kms in what is being called the Digital Gangetic Plain.

Access to the Internet has seen relatively slower growth: Indian connections are estimated at five millions — that translates to 25 million users since Internet accounts are mostly shared.

This may be a small percentage of the worlds Net-connected (700 million and growing) but users here have had to contend with slow and inefficient dial up connections. Yet a 30-minute access from an Indian cyber dhaba is — at Rs. 10 to Rs. 15 — amongst the cheapest in the world. While one in two Indian TV owners have a cable connection, this huge customer base has been barely tapped to provide cheap Internet-through-Cable services.

The cost of a special modem — Rs. 3000 or so — is a major deterrent. The other nascent technology — Internet through the domestic electricity connection — has been tried out only in one State — Assam.

In his message to member-nations today on the eve of World Telecom Day, the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, writes: ``The terms `information society', `digital era' or `information age' have all been used to describe this age. Whatever the term, the society we build ... must be one in which all people must have access to information and knowledge''. India's response could well be: We have some way to go but we are getting there.

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