The Year of Convergence, Finally

It’s

the ABC of 21st-century infotech, the first lap.

Two years ago, I wrote about the A-year, the year of the Application. India

really discovered enterprise apps in 2000. We did all have e-mail, and early

adopters had MRP and ERP and even extranets. But 2000 saw apps really enter

mid-size businesses. Words like CRM, SCM and even ASP, peppered CIO-talk.

We called 2001 the B-year. Bandwidth was Big. After all the debate about the

real corporate demand, 2001 saw frenetic activity. Reliance, Bharti et al criss-crossed

India with fiber ducts. Even with many of them empty and the fiber dark, India’s

backbone and gateway bandwidth multiplied several times over 2001.

Exactly a year ago, I said on this page that while the Convergence Act wasn’t

really about convergence, it was a good start, though a late update on 1885...

Last year, the IT and telecom ministries, sensibly, converged, with a

tech-friendly minister at the helm.

Finally, it’s the C-year. Convergence. Communications. Consumer. Choice of

Carrier. Competition.

January 2002 has seen bigger steps than the last ten years did. Private long

distance players led by Bharti went live, cutting call rates by more than half.

And many backbone carriers are emerging as alternatives, as the IT Task Force

report hoped for. The Railways have RailTel and dreams beyond. The Gas Authority

of India, with 2,000 km of fiber across along its gas pipelines, will sell this

bandwidth, and invest $200 million in the three years.

The vestiges of monopoly are fading. Bandwidth carrier Flag was finally

allowed to sell direct to companies (and VSNL dropped bandwidth rates 40% an

hour later). Other ISPs will follow. International long distance opens up in

April, when phone cards will flood the market.

And there’s all the changes carrying over from the B-year. Dropping

cellular airtime rates, private competition forcing major shifts in basic

telephony service levels, toll-free numbers that mostly work, the use of virtual

calling cards. "Revolution" is too strong a word–until service

quality jumps, and the reach multiplies fivefold–but they’re several big

steps forward.

We’re not quite there on convergence: there’s quite a distance to go.

There’s the challenge of VoIP ahead. VSNL’s estimated to have lost $37

million to VoIP despite the so-called ban. When it does go legit, probably in

April, it will probably be a closed door for ISPs, which doesn’t make much

sense. But the ISP can get an ILD license.

The biggest impact of VoIP could be on exports revenues: moving call centers

up the value chain, to enhanced services– CRM interfaces like click-to-talk,

voice mail, video, and auto-dialing from a database..

By then, even the giant VSNL be partly privately held by Reliance, or the

Tatas.