Broadband - The Missing Ace
Bernard has a nice post titled ‘State of Innovation in India‘ over at ReadWriteWeb. While it makes an interesting reading, I feel he has left out one very important “Ace” - the state of broadband infrastructure in India.
I’d couple the broadband issue with the “reliable low cost telecommunications” and make the title more generic like “reliable, pervasive communication infrastructure”.
Broadband in India is still lacking on several fronts. For starters, based on my conversations with several folks, getting a broadband connection is a struggle in itself. It is unreliable and not “always-on” in the true sense. Frequent disruptions are a common thing. Only 20,000 new broadband connections were added in India in October 2007.
From what I hear, things are getting better. But as long as broadband is not pervasive and ‘always-on’, it still remains a big impediment to the innovation ecosystem - at least to the consumer Internet industry.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:31 am
bernard’s post is bullshit he does not understand about indian scenario. Has he looked where is the VC money going? there is no early stage VC fund available in india. India is country where angel investor look for cash flows in your balance sheet
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:46 am
Amit
Thats a very valid point…Seed / angel funding is still very small in India. Sramana Mitra has addressed this topic several times..hopefully the scenario gets better this year..
-p
January 4th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Thanks for tracking to my article. Re Broadband, yes I was less focussed on domestic consumer internet plays and the lack of broadband at home is a limitation for those. However compare to 10 years ago and you have a) low cost mobile and b) low cost bandwidth for businesses (call center etc). This is good enough to operate on the world stage. That was not true 10 years ago.
Re lack of VC, I really do disagree. Sure you have to work to get and thats true in the US as well and that is as it should be. Good article here on this:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/BizNext_Gen-next/By_invitation_Bill_Davidow/articleshow/2661507.cms
January 6th, 2008 at 4:17 am
Bernard,
The article does not convince me either. I have first hand experience of dealing with angel investors. Look at the portfolio companies of angel investors you will get the rough idea, except minglebox, i don’t think so any other company has got early stage funding without being revenue positive.