Broadband is directly related to the country's GDP growth

Increased broadband proliferation can create a real IT revolution in India. However the country needs to work harder to get the best out of broadband and related services. I had caught up with Vinnie Mehta, executive director, MAIT (Manufacturers' Association For Information Technology) a few days back to talk about;

The broadband scenario in India

VM: There is absolutely no denying that Broadband is a very critical efficiency resource for any organization. We can't think of not being connected anymore. I think the broadband penetration is still very poor in India. The television sector stands as a good example for the broadband sector.

In early 80's when we had the Asian games, the government allowed the cable industry, which was a non-regulatory industry, to grow. What that led to was an enormous amount of content. Today we have hundreds of channels available on our television. TV penetration, along with viewer ship increased dramatically and thus TV became a very important medium for mass communication.

Unfortunately when we look at creating an IT revolution in the country, we realize that we have probably missed out some of the elements. Broadband penetration in India is pretty low. Apart from that, for the entire cycle to happen, along with broadband, we need the right content, especially in local languages.

Contents will also imply applications and services ride on the broadband infrastructure. The lack of content in turn results in very slow proliferation of broadband infrastructure. As a result, we are not able to harness the economic growth in the country. So, I believe broadband has direct relation with the country's GDP growth. If there were a plethora of services available on broadband infrastructure, it would clearly lead to economic growth.

The market opportunities

VM: I feel, India really need to push hard on the broadband because it is one of the very critical infrastructures that we are severely lacking. If India wants to focus on being a knowledge driven country, broadband is very important. But it does not mean that there is no hope in the country for broadband growth.

The government has taken some initiatives. This year has been declared as the year of broadband. By 2010, the government wants to achieve 40 million Internet connections out of which 60 per cent is expected to be broadband connections.

And, if you look at the market opportunity, it's really huge. 20 million broadband connections also mean 20 million set top boxes. 40 million Internet connections will lead to 40 million front-end devices. If broadband proliferates and achieves the targets that have been set for it, it is going to be a bonanza for the hardware sector.

The limitations of copper for delivering broadband and the other technology options

VM: India depends largely on copper for broadband delivery. Copper has limitations in delivering high bandwidth connection. In India we still deliver only 256 kbps, though in countries like UK, they were able to deliver up to 10 Mbps through copper.

Of course the government is trying hard to increase it. However, copper is somewhat limiting the capacity for delivering broadband. It can deliver only so much. The other option is to lay fibers which will be an expensive process.

We can also embrace wireless technologies. Wimax is emerging as a viable option, but again availability of spectrum for Wimax remains an issue. We need to be clearer on this. For a country like India, which is so vast in its geography, wireless makes more sense.

The need of enterprises to invest in broadband

VM: Broadband acts as a mechanism of delivering so many services. For enterprises, there is always an economic value- add from these services. For example, the cost of VoIP would be one be one by tenth of that of the normal phone calls.

Video conferencing not only saves money but helps us save time and stress of traveling from one place to the other. Right use of the technology always saves money and time for enterprises. Broadband is the best of example of that. So, it definitely makes sense for enterprises to invest in broadband.