Internet: A distant dream for India's aam admi
Shreenesh Raman
The government along with its policy makers and tech savvy
people of the young India are still in the 'Dark Age' when it comes to adoption of internet
and e-services.
With a country of over billion people, more than 15 percent
of our GDP is coming from the service industry (IT/ITeS). The large
multinational corporations set shops in India in late 20th century
after the government assured massive freebies in the name of tax sops and IT
parks developments.
Those multinational corporations’
including Amazon, Google, Intel, Texas Instruments, IBM, Microsoft are able to
host their cloud from the same country where its ‘aam-admi’ is devoid of a basic
internet connection with a minimum assured speed of 512kbps.
When certain Western and Southeastern countries in the world
are reaching great heights through internet revolution, here in India we still
dream for a 2 Mbps connection with least 70 percent uptime. The cartelisation of
internet bandwidth market has led to high bandwidth rates, thanks to the
efforts taken by TATA, Airtel and RCom for denying the power of Internet. Even
the union telecom ministry is not able to face the situation on the ‘alleged’ cartelisation.
BSNL a ‘failed’ Corporation
The fate of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is still hanging in
the air. The company once proud of their cross-country presence is in shambles
due to day today interference of DoT. After the 2G spectrum allocation scam,
the administration of BSNL went on a roller coaster ride.
“BSNL is one of the white elephant maintained by the Union
government,” said a BSNL staff on condition of anonymity. The massive workforce
of more than one lakh is no more use, hurting the efficiency of the company.
The core network and equipments are IP based network, however, the company still depends on the skill of its
line man who has no up-to-date knowledge on the modern equipment.
I hope, massive reduction in ailing workforce and increase of administrative freedom to a certain limit will turn the white elephant an African elephant in a decade's time.
BBNL: An initiative with hope
The announcement of Bharat Broadband Network Limited with
much fanfare by the union telecom ministry is another project built on the
dreams based on PSUs like BSNL, Power Grid and RailTel. The OFC network of BSNL spanning every nook and corner of the country is an advantage for BBNL. However, the
bureaucratic red tapeand restrictions surrounding the tenders for purchase of OFC’s, GPON
equipment and ONTs are posing great risk on the efficient roll-out of the
network.
The three private telecom companies that command over 90
percent of the internet gateways were not included in the project. The
government simply ignored these companies onto the board of BBNL. After
selling stake of VSNL, the government lost its control over the international bandwidth
market. Without international bandwidth, developing a countrywide optic fiber network
is rather a huge risk taken by the government.
Even though the government promises to roll out more e-governance
initiative, commercial roll out of broadband service across the nation alone will
bring in the much needed internet penetration in terms of numbers. Connecting every village level
offices will not benefit the masses.
In my honest opinion, the government must set tough
regulation to control the gateway operators with strict tariffs.
Lastly, the
last mile connectivity is a major roadblock faced by the telecom companies. To
solve the issue, the government must come forward to open up the unlit fiber
capacity of PSU ISPs. Only then, the internet penetration will be a success
story like mobile phone revolution for a country of Billions.