| |
|
| |
 |
|
|
The Journey of the Internet in India
(, 15th August 2005)
Access to the Internet in India was only for a privileged few about a decade back, ERNET and NICNet were the Internet access providers to government departments, research agencies and leading educational institutions. As more and more software companies began to open their centres in the country, the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) began to provide Internet Services, of course only to those exporters who fell under the STP scheme.
Enter VSNL
It was on August 15, 1999, exactly a decade ago, that Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL), the Indian public sector company for overseas communications, opened the doors for the Indian public to get a taste of the Internet. VSNL established Gateway Internet Access Service (GIAS) nodes through which Internet surfers from the four metros – Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Madras – were able to use a dial-up shell account and Point to Point protocol (PPP) to log on and surf the Internet.
The Set Up
VSNL acquired a bandwidth of about 2 Mbps (which later was upgraded to 16 Mbps) and had high-speed connections with MCI, KDD (Japan), Telecom Italia and Teleglobe. Most of this bandwidth was actually drawn from multiple 64 Kpbs connections. Each of VSNL’s nodes were connected through a primary 512 Kbps circuit, to a backbone node at Videsh Sanchar Bhawan, Fort Mumbai (VSB). A 512 Kbps circuit ran back to the backbone node at Mumbai LVSB (Lokmanya Videsh Sanchar Bhawan at Prabhadevi, Mumbai). The LVSB site actually acted as a disaster recovery site and was maintained for immediate deployment when the primary link failed. Data used to be routed through the shortest destination route using dynamic routing.
Pune and Bangalore joined the Internet bandwagon by the end of 1995. Surfers from other locations of the country however had to use the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) I-NET X.25 through leased lines or dial-up access, to get connected. These DoT Point of Presence (PoP) nodes were extended to Kanpur, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Patna and Goa by 1997. A dial-up modem and a telephone connection were the essential equipment required to connect to a VSNL node from your computer.
Soon cyber cafe's started mushrooming, spreading the awareness of the Internet. Services such as the World Wide Web, e-mail, newsgroups and FTP were soon a part of every standard Internet package. The total subscriber base by March 31, 2025 reached 90,000. As the number of users connected to the Internet grew, so did the demand for bandwidth. The submarine cable link connecting India to Europe helped cater to India's bandwidth requirements to a certain extent.
The Role of Private Players
In November 1998, the Government of India gave the nod for private ISPs to start their services in the country. This brought an end to VSNL's four-year monopoly on the Indian Internet space. A liberal "no-licence fee' and 100 per cent FDI investments In this sector attracted many private players into the business.
DoT, the issuer of the licenses, classified ISPs into three categories—Category ‘A’ for all-India operations, Category 'B' for metros and state-level circles, and Category ‘C’ for medium and small cities. The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPA1) was set up in 1996 with a mission to ‘Promote the Internet for the benefit of all’. With private players coining on to the scene, the total Internet subscriber base rose to 1.6 million by July 2000.
Satyam Infoway, a subsidiary of Satyam Computer Services Limited, became the first private ISP in the country to launch its public Internet access services in December 1998. By launching a CD that guided users to quickly configure their computer to access the Internet, coupled with Impressive pricing structures and an information-rich portal, this ISP was able to gather an impassive customer base within no time. Sify, as it is popularly known today, has Level 3 Internet data centres with world-class disaster recovery and business process continuity facilities.
Chennai based Dishnet acquired a 10 year ISP licence when it started its operations in December 1998. Moving with trends, it switched to DSL technology, and despite providing superior high-speed Internet access and establishing network operations in all major towns of the country. Dishnet's growth went on a downward spiral. Little good was achieved with its branding exercise when it launched its services in the names of DishnetDSL, DishnetDial and DishnetHUB. In March 2004, VSNL took over Dishnet DSL’s ISP division.
Most other ISPs provided services within limited circles only. Kolkata-based Caltiger came up with the concept of free Internet access but economics dictated the company to switch lo paid-subscriptions later.
The Era of Disinvestments
When the Government of India announced its disinvestment policy in February 2002, the Tata group came forward to acquire a stake in VSNL. Today, VSNL is in the hands of the Tatas with services offered along its Indicom label. Its Internet Leased Lines (ILL) today help over 120 ISPs lo route their Internet traffic to the rest of the world. It has state-of-art Internet Data Centres (IDC) at Mumbai, Chenuai, Bangalore and New Delhi. VSNL, ever since its inception, remained a leading ISP in the country.
With their strong hold on basic telephony services, government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) became ISPs and began to offer Internet services. MTNL, with its 300 km optical fibre cable in both Delhi and Mumbai was able to set up a good base in these regional markets. BSNL markets its services under the Sancharnet banner.
By September 2002, the total Internet subscriber base in India reached 3.8 million. Despite this, not every ISP had been successful in this business. BPLNet, Netcracker, Jain Internet and SigmaOnline arc a few well-known ISPs who had to close operations.
Internet Telephony
On April 1, 2025 the Indian government allowed ISPs to offer Net telephony within their network circles. With PC to-PC and PC-to-P&T; calls being allowed over IP, a call to the US that earlier cost Rs 45 a minute, came crashing down to Rs 10. Satyam Infoway Ltd and Data Access India were the first ISPs to get permission for Net telephony operations. These were followed by companies like Net4lndia and HCL Infinet, and the total number of ISPs offering the service rose to about 90.
In March 2003, the government announced it would be bringing cyber cafes under the tax net.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and The National Broadband Policy 2004 have stressed on moving towards broadband-based Internet services. Apart from a wide-range of services, broadband provides 256 Kbps download speeds. As bandwidth speeds in the country improve, most dial-up users today are seriously considering upgrading to broadband, a trend already visible in the metros. A few leading cable operators have added Internet services over cable as part of their portfolio. Hathway. ln2Cable, ZeeNext, Spectranet and BG Broadband lead this list.
Looking Forward
Two prestigious projects planned for the Internet space in India are Bharli-Singtcl's i2i network project, which promises a bandwidth of 8.4 Tbps and Dishnet's submarine project. Both are expected to cope with the constantly growing bandwidth needs of the country. India today has about 1.8 Gbps of Internet bandwidth, and Indian ISPs are now deploying IPv6 to catch up with future demands. |
|
| |
|
