Spreading The Net

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Spreading The Net



The initiatives of the government promise cheaper and better access of the internet.

State initiatives will ensure bringing the internet to every nook and corner of the country. The government is committed to bring internet to the people. This has been amply demonstrated time and again with the ISP policy being the first instance. In a country marked with high license fees, the ISP policy came as a surprise to all as there was no license fees for the first five years and only a token of Rs1 for the next 10 years. Also the DoT has launched its national internet backbone (NIB) program and aims to connect 549 stations across the country. The DoT is following a three-tier architecture and aims to connect the district headquarters and other small towns by the end of the project. Also many states have launched their own initiative to build a statewide IP network and these states have tied up with WorldTel and Reliance to build the network.

For example, the Tamil Nadu project aims at setting up a fiber optic backbone across the state to support multi-purpose community centers that will act as a one-stop-center for STD, ISD, PCO, internet access and DTP center. The project will use the IIT CorDECT wireless technology developed by Dr Ashok Jhunjunwala and his team at IIT Chennai. 

Once all these projects go on stream it will bring in huge potential to the ISP models as they can connect to the NIB and statewide IP backbone to increase their spread across the country. Moreover, most state governments are keen to develop the local content as the Tamil Nadu Government has already initiated the standardization of Tamil fonts, during the TamilNet‘99 conference held in Chennai in 1999. As they would consider other services like egovernance, ecommerce and ebanking, the endeavor is to bring internet to the common people. This would again fuel the growth of the internet in the country. 

So, despite the poor telecom and low PC penetration, ISP providers can look forward to the opening up of a huge market.

Additional reporting by 



AKILA SUBRAMANIAM