Where Is the NIB?

Chances are high that the e-mails that you send to your

colleagues in the country, will first move on to a US-based server before being

routed to your colleagues’ mailboxes. The same is true of Indian Web sites.

Click on a supposedly Indian site and there is a high probability that the same

request will be routed to some US server. Statistics point out that out of over

a million Indian Web sites and domain names, a meager 1,600 are hosted from

India.

In India, it is the international Internet bandwidth that has

been hogging the limelight. Be it Nasscom or Frost and Sullivan or general media

reports, the culprit usually has been the international bandwidth for almost all

of India’s Internet problems. Nasscom has predicted an international bandwidth

of 10Gbps by the year-end. Amitabh Kumar, director (operations), VSNL, counters

Nasscom’s claims of 10Gbps bandwidth by the year-end. Says Kumar, "Nasscom’s

figure of 10GB pertains to the total connectivity in the country including that

of domestic backbones." So the real issue is not



international but the domestic bandwidth.

No NIB

AT&T and Qwest in the US or BT in the UK have invested

massively in building up the domestic Internet infrastructures in their

respective countries. Also, Asian states like Malaysia and Singapore are way

ahead compared to India. Singapore has deployed an ATM base broadband multimedia

network, which will help the country become a major IT hub for the Asia-Pacific

region. Malaysia is following its neighbor’s footsteps. The country has

developed a multimedia super corridor by linking 12 of its cities through a

700-Km fiber optic backbone of 2.5-10Gbps. Access is provided to home and office

through optics.

It is not that we have not thought about the same. As late as

1997, India had launched its own national Internet backbone with fanfare. The

task of setting up a much-hyped national Internet backbone was given to the DoT

and the first phase of the same was to be handed over to the nation by January

2000. But that is yet to happen. Moreover, the whole project seems to be in a

limbo. Says Kumar, "The perception that there is a shortage of

international bandwidth is misplaced. The real issue is that of providing

connectivity within the country."

Be it private players or DoT, a robust Internet backbone has

to be in place. For a security conscious nation like India, the local hosting

has to be seriously considered, as the same would enable the country to take

care of the data in adverse political scenarios or in the event of a war or a

disaster. If the high-speed backbone with the Internet exchanges is available in

the country, a majority of the e-mail and Web site-related requests would be

routed within the country with lesser reliance on the international bandwidth.

Comments Dewang Mehta, president, Nasscom, "Our projection of 300Gbps by

2005 can come down by about a 100Gbps if we have a good internal

infrastructure."

However, the bigger question is whether the NIB in its

current avatar can really be the answer to India’s Internet infrastructure?

The NIB will add a bandwidth of only 34Mbps to the national

backbone on the major routes and 8Mbps on other routes. This could lead to a

problem of connectivity with the international bandwidth. Comments Kumar,

"We have major centers in India as users of bandwidth, such as Hyderabad,

Bangalore, Delhi and Calcutta. And these would need to be connected on the

domestic links. VSNL would typically require a STM-2 link (155Mbps) to connect

such centers." So even if the current NIB comes into play, it would stand

redundant, considering the buoyant demand. Also, the first phase of NIB would

connect only the main cities and until the second phase is completed, the rest

of the country would not be able to avail of the benefits of NIB.

Conclusion

Setting up of the NIB is imperative to the success of the

Indian Net economy. Says Kumar, "More and more corporate applications in

India now require connectivity, preferably within the country itself." So

it does not make sense for India to go for international bandwidth without first

doing away with the local Internet constraints.

International bandwidth is not much of an issue. With the

submarine cables or satellite already in place, the task is much easier than one

thinks. However, it’s the NIB, which will continue to pose problems for India.

This involves setting up of fiber optic networks across the country, for which

besides money, time will become the bigger issue.

With the NIB project looking increasingly long-term, the

opening up of the national long distance telephony is a good beginning. Like in

the developed countries, it’s the private players who have led the charge of

building the basic internet infrastructure blocks. Again, it could take more

than two years to have the network in place across the country. The private

basic telephony players are already putting a part of the larger Internet

backbone game plan in place. However, DoT’s involvement is very crucial for

the success of NIB. Says KS Ganesan, CTO, networking, Bangalore Labs,

"Involvement of private players will certainly boost up the overall

capacity, but it’s important that the country’s biggest infrastructure

player DoT plays a crucial role in making this happen." The big names like

Reliance, Enron, Bharti and Hughes are already laying optics crisscrossing the

states. But until that happens, it will still be a long time before Indian users

can have a good Internet experience, even if the international bandwidth is in

place.

YOGRAJ VARMA



in New Delhi