May 5, 2005
Broadband drives business on information expressway

MUMBAI -- Alliance India recently conducted a one-day conference on 'Broadband - Driving your business on the information expressway'. The event, presided by Parind Parekh, member, ISPAI, was attended by senior managers of various industry verticals, who are in need to consider broadband for leveraging their national and international connectivity.

Parekh said: "The broadband revolution is about to unleash itself on a bandwidth-starved nation, and the battle lines are drawn. Key players are pouring in money - loads of it - to build a broadband network, convinced they would find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The efforts of Government of India, TRAI and ISPAI for turning the dream into reality are commendable. The broadband Policy 2004 targets at least 50 percent Internet subscriptions to be of broadband type in India, with effect from 2005 itself. The bandwidth requirement will explode and prices will continue to fall bringing about economics of scale."

Deepak Verma, country head, key accounts and business solution group, Reliance Infocomm revealed how voice, data and video can be delivered by their network, which is already future-enabled. Reliance has laid the backbone across India of larger capacity to handle growing demands of home and enterprise. The days are not far where we can access VoD, gaming, video conferencing at home through set top box. He further stated that there is huge potential for integrated convergent services as TV penetration in India is significantly higher as compared to computers. Also, in the past five years, the growth of TV households has been steady at nine percent while cable and satellite households have grown at 17 percent per annum.

Verma disclosed how the broadband connectivity is spread across the world. After acquiring major broadband company overseas, Reliance Infocomm has become number one provider of international connectivity spreading all over the globe. Its MPLS VPN provides end-to-end managed solution.

The conference provided a holistic approach how enterprises are using technology and Internet connectivity to expand their business. Rajeev Gupta, AGM, IT services, ITC Ltd, showed how e-choupal penetrated in rural India and brought technology to the farmer. Currently, e-choupal reached over 30,000 villages across India and is being used by over 3,000,000 farmers. ITC plans to expand its network in 100,000 villages by 2010. He added that its services upgraded lives of farmers who can take better decisions due to information reaching them at right time.

PSUs like MTNL also showed their expertise at the event and were ready to take challenges from private sectors. Due to increased competition from private players, MTNL introduced its broadband services.

K P Kumar, GM, sales, MTNL, revealed their targets of achieving a minimum of 10 million subscribers by 2010 and 35 million subscribers by 2020 in urban India across homes, enterprises and public kiosks. Through rural broadband kiosks, it is targeting a broadband coverage in at least 50 percent of the rural population by 2010 and 100 percent by 2020.

He added: "MTNL has advantages since it is already reaching consumers through landline. So, it does not have to invest in network and laying of the backbone. MTNL is leveraging on these benefits to bring broadband to the consumer at competitive rates as the consumers do not have to change lines and can use broadband on the same telephone line."

M. S. Nagarajan, UTI Bank, said: "The mantra for growth is to 'stay connected, stay alive'. In early 2000, UTI Bank needed any kind of network even in the crudest form so that they could expand their network. UTI bank leveraged on all available modes of connectivity be it, leased lines, VSATs TDMA, DAMA, VPN or ISDN for its services outlets."