No More A Dream

The
cable falls short

All this is easier said than done. One only wishes that the cable
TV providers, ISPs and others could quickly roll out the services
on the cable network at a reasonable cost Allowing a large number
of people to access the internet at high speed like their counterparts
in the West. But the Indian cable industry is far from that goal
where it becomes the ground for nurturing high-speed internet access.

As
of now the cost of the cable modems is the biggest disadvantage
for the cable TV service providers. Agrees Srinivas Palakodeti,
VP, Business Development (projects), IndusInd Media & Communications,
"The landed price of a cable modem works out to about Rs16,000-Rs18,000
which is definitely costlier than PSTN modems and hence could be
a major obstacle in achieving mass penetration."

Apart
from the high cost of the cable modems, a user would still need
a computer to hook up to the cable network, further increasing the
cost. The other option of hooking up a set-top box to your TV set
is still not widely available and the technology is still in its
infancy. Another catch with a set-top box is that you cannot store
data in the box and to have the full pleasure of surfing you would
need a cable modem hooked up to your computer.

However,
for the cable operators this does not seem to be an important factor.
Comments Palakodeti, "Once a customer appreciates the advantages
of cable modems, its price will be a secondary factor." Moreover,
cable modem prices too are taking a beating in the international
market. Says CS Arora, GM, Siticable, "At the beginning of
the year, the cable modems were priced at about $375 but now people
are talking about $200." The prices are expected to come down
further as manufacturers worldwide start rolling out modems compliant
with the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCISIS).
With most of the manufacturers moving out of the propriety technology
and adopting DOCSIS standards, prices are expected to come down
significantly, even in India. Agrees Vijay Yadav, Business Manager,
Carrier and WAN, 3Com, "Some major announcements are in the
offing in the next one or two months. Prices are expected to take
a downward trend and will be cheaper for the cable operators."
Another factor that could bring down the prices is the fact that
a few Taiwanese companies have also started manufacturing cable
modems. Says Arora, "It is the Taiwanese companies which will
bring down the prices as witnessed in the dialup modem market."

However,
the bigger problem will come from the franchise side for the MSO.
The current cable infrastructure can only support one-way communication
but internet services would require infrastructure capable of handling
two-way communications. This implies that most of the cable operators
would have to upgrade the existing cable network by installing reverse
amplifiers. Additionally, a splitter would be required at the customers
end for separating the TV signal from the data signal. This would
mean investment on the part of the local operators and how keen
the operator would be will depend on the market opportunity available
to them. Though MSOs have already taken the first step and most
of them have started laying or have already laid fiber optic on
the trunk route-the headends connecting to the cable operator-the
last mile still needs lot of upgradation. Says Palakodeti, "The
approximate cost for upgrading the network to have a return path
would be around Rs1,000 per subscriber."

So
if your cable operator is not keen to upgrade his infrastructure,
you are still stuck for access on the PSTN network.

Another
smaller issue for the end-user would be download speed via the cable
network. Though the cable modem can give upto 30Mbps, the speed
reduces as the number of users on the network increases. According
to results of tests done by Keynote Systems, the recognized authority
on internet performance, DSL outperformed a cable modem during peak
usage during evening hours. The test results showed that internet
downloaded at a much slower rate over a cable modem compared to
a T1 connection, and cable modem performance deteriorated during
evening hours, when peak residential use of internet occurred. Agrees
Palakodeti, "The speeds on cable are shared by the number of
subscribers online at a particular point in time, but the actual
throughput are expected to be at least five to six times the throughput
on a dialup service."

But for a country starved of high-speed access, even this will be
good enough.

Internet
over cable wins hands down

You would now have a logical question-If internet over cable can
provide such high speeds, what has been the status on the global
scale? Globally, the cable modems have not seen as much growth as
the cable industry would have liked it. However, one has to see
the basic differences in the developed countries and India. In the
US for example, there is a much better telephone infrastructure
and the key attractions of the internet over cable-no telephone
cost and online connections-are provided by telcos who usually pick
up the tabs for the telephone charges. A very high degree of competition
in such markets has forced the services to be priced at very reasonable
levels. In India, the DoT and MTNL monopolies may not bring on such
a situation for some time. Though DoT and MTNL are experimenting
with DSL technology, it will take a long time for mass deployment.
Even DSL players in the country agree that the services will be
initially targeting the corporate sector rather than the mass market.
Until then, one only hopes that the cable operators quickly roll
out their internet services and get high speed internet access to
the Indian public. Says Ajeet Kackar, President, Ark Communication,
"Internet via cable surely is going to come up in a big way.
Imagine connecting to the net without dialing any number and at
an economical price of Rs750 per month for unlimited high speed
access-sure is cheap by any standards."

We
all want internet over cable to happen, soon.

YOGRAJ
VARMA

in New Delhi