BSNL offers free dialup Internet service
It’s common knowledge that Internet penetration in India is miserable.
In order to make Internet more common place, BSNL has launched a scheme of free dialup Internet service for two months. All you need is a valid BSNL telephone connection and you can use it to access the free dialup Internet service. No registration is needed and local call charges still apply.
All in all, sounds great. However, 3 weeks since launch and only 1000 users have signed up the service yet.
What do you think ? Will this fly ? Will this scheme help more folks to get online ? Or just a fancy marketing gimmick ?
TRAI quarterly stats for mobile and Internet subscribers in India
TRAI released quarterly report for the quarter ending December 2007.
Some highlights:
- Wireless market grows 11.74% and total wireless subscriber base stands 233.62 million
- Internet subscriber base reaches 10.36 million
- Broadband subscriber base reaches 3.13 million users. Rate of growth in this quarter is 17.23%
- There are 57.83 million wireless Internet subscribers (capable of accessing Internet through mobile handset (GSM/ CDMA))
- 54% of ISPs failed to meet the benchmark of service provisioning/activation within 2 weeks
India Online - from a Global perspective
Erick@Techcrunch had an interesting post - The Internet from a global perspective. While US had the maximum number of Internet users (161.6 million), China was catching up fast (96 million).
With a user base of 25.2 million users, India came in at the 8th position. We (me included) keep whining about how Internet penetration in India is still negligible, but if you look at it from a global perspective, even with the pitiful penetration, we managed to come in at number 8. If the penetration increases by only 10% this year (wishful thinking), we’ll very easily jump two places in this list.
If you see the above penetration in terms of percentage of population, the table looks like below:
US - 53 %
china - 7.2 %
japan - 42.3%
germany - 40%
uk - 53.3%
france - 43.2%
south korea - 53%
India - 2.23%
And you can see exactly why China and India offer such a huge room for growth. The world’s most populous nations and the Internet penetration is still in single digits. Thanks to the forward looking communist regime, China is making tremendous progress in the Internet front (disregarding the online censorship, ‘great firewall’ etc.). Sadly, such aggressive efforts are still missing in India. The Indian Government’s initiative last year - “2007 - year of the broadband” was a big disappointment. Subscriber base grew at a much slower rate than projected. We need to act & act fast.
Startup Idea # 2
Last week, I described one of the two ideas that struck me while I was in Bangalore. Here’s idea # 2.
How about starting an affordable conceirge service for everyday, household services ?
For instance, my friend was having a plumbing problem at his place. The plumber agreed to drop by the day after around 2 pm. My friend decided towork from home so that he would be around when the plumber showed up. The plumber, of course, failed to show up. Repeated calls to the plumber’s mobile were in vain. The same thing repeated itself the next day. Finally, on the 4th day of the ordeal, the plumber showed up for the job, much to my friends relief.
Towards the end, my friend was so exasperated that I dont think he would have hesitated to pay a bit extra for some prompt service. His gripe was - “Kaash ek call mein kaam khatam ho jaata”.
And just like him, I dont think there’s a dearth of other folks (who’re strapped for time and super stressed) who’ll shell up a bit extra for added convenience.
I wont be surprised if such conceirge services already exist for the super rich and elite. But such a service could be pretty successful amongst the IT demographic as well. And the service can be made affordable, considering that it can make up for the cost in volume.
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.
8 Mbps broaband line in India
You read it right..Airtel announced the launch of 8 Mbps broadband line on Wednesday. The service will initially be available in Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Kolkota, Delhi - NCR. Availability in Mumbai and Hyderabad will be after a few weeks.
The service is likely to cost around 2000 Rs. for the 8 Mbps pipe. Apparently a pay per use pricing scheme is also in the works. So, you can order the extra bandwidth as and when you need (and you get charged for it), while rest of the time, you can use your 256 kbps / 2 Mbps connection. A la bandwidth-on-demand.
via ET
If anyone has any additional details about the 8 Mbps pipe from Airtel, please let me know.
In the meanwhile, compare this - the median real-time download speed in US is 1.9 Mbps.
The great Indian telecom license frenzy
Back in August, TRAI decided not to put a cap on the number of telecom operators in India. And this has triggered a frenzy in getting telecom licenses.
Day by day, it looks like every big Indian firm, who is sitting on a pile of some extra cash, is applying for a telecom license. You have the real estate companies (DLF, Parsvnath, IndiaBulls Real Estate Ltd., Unitech Ltd.). And now, with Russian company Sistema acquiring Shyam Telelink, even foreign players are jumping in.
While some of the license applicants maybe serious about their telecom foray, I think majority are aiming to get a piece of the pie - and then sellout at a premium at a later time.
Just like DoT announced that no new applications will be accepted for mobile licenses starting Oct 1, at this rate, such an announcement should come soon for the telecom sector as well.
Wireless and broadband subscriber numbers at end of August 2007
TRAI has released the latest numbers for the wireless and broadband subscriber base, ending August 2007.
As per the release, the wireless subscriber base in India has reached 201.29 million users with 8.31 million users added in August.
Broadband connections (>= 256 Kbps) have reached 2.56 million. There was an addition of 90,000 users in August 2007.
Detailed report here (PDF file).
Broadband numbers - this time from eMarketer
There have been numerous reports and projections of the number of Internet and broadband subscribers in India - the IAMAI report, JuxtConsult report, TRAI numbers (PDF doc), Comscore numbers. Now, eMarketer offers its own report on the number of broadband subscribers in India.
Key points of the report:
* eMarketer projects 3.2 million broadband connections in India by end of 2007, with a penetration rate of 1.6%
* Instead of the Indian Govt. projections of 20 million broadband users by 2010, eMarketer projects that India will have only 10.5 million broadband connections by 2011
* While Comscore Networks puts the number of Internet users at 22.8 million (discounting access from cyber cafes), eMarketer pegs the Internet user base at 33.2 million at January 2007 (eMarketer definition of Internet user as someone who has accessed Internet at least once in the last 30 days)
* With 2.3% of Indians going online, India has the lowest penetration rate in the Asia Pacific region
* With the Internet user base growing at 33% (one of the highest in the world), India holds the maximum promise
Again, the entire story here.
Update: It looks like the government is taking notice of the poor broadband penetration. Aggressive, corrective actions need to be taken if the broadband projections for next year are to be met. In line with that, TRAI has invited comments (PDF doc) from interested stakeholders on the growth of broadband in India.
What is ailing the broadband adoption in India ?
First of all, apologies for the slow posting lately. Things have been insanely hectic the last 1-2 weeks thanks to all the traveling. But by this week, things should stabilize a bit and posting will hopefully get to normal.
While still on the road, I had to make time for this post - more so, I felt compelled to write this post.
As part of the latest issue, BusinessWorld has a great cover story on the state of broadband adoption in India. Besides stating the obvious - that broadband penetration in India is miserable - the story also tries to uncover the reasons for the poor adoption. That is one of the things I have always found missing from most of the other broadband related ’studies’.
Here’re some of the interesting pieces from the BW story:
India has 2.52 million high-speed connections, compared to 60 million and 55 million for the US and China, respectively. At least 50 per cent connections in India are with corporates; consumer broadband is barely 1.3 million. But there is a sleight of hand even in these dismal numbers. India follows an archaic definition of broadband, using the term to describe any Internet connection that moves data at more than 256 kbps (kilobits per second). This is not enough to download movies, use Internet telephones, etc. To the rest of the world, a broadband connection must be at least 2 mbps (megabits per second). By that definition, India has only about 400,000 high-speed lines.
Only 400,000 high speed residential connections !!
Amongst other reasons, the story puts the blame on the service providers - BSNL, VSNL, Airtel, Reliance:
Ironically, India’s optic fibre capacity — the pipes that deliver broadband — far exceeds current usage. At least 40 per cent of the 700,000-km optic fibre laid has not been operationalised by telecom companies, according to Trai.
While Reliance has laid the most — 100,000 km — optic fibre, the largest mobile company Bharti Airtel has just 40,000 km. Others have less than 10,000 km each. They continue to drag their feet in reaching the optic fibre to the customer and their offerings remain limited to a handful of geographical pockets in and around the top dozen cities. Instead, their investments and management are largely focused on the highly profitable mobile business.
The reason, as Bharti Airtel’s President Atul Bindal says, is that “broadband equipment costs are much higher than mobile equipmentâ€. Every optic fibre line to the consumer costs telcos at least $750 (Rs 30,000) while mobile phone networks can be set up for as little as $90 (Rs 3,600) a line. “Broadband is a lot more challenging,†says Prakash Bajpai, CEO of broadband business at Reliance Communications. “Here you need to lay fibre, get permissions from municipal authorities, housing societies, etc. In mobile there are no such issues.â€
High cost for broadband is also a deterrent for higher adoption:
What’s more, broadband providers such as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Reliance charge Rs 3,300 per month for a 2-mbps connection — itself a rare commodity. That is nearly five times what a similar line costs in Japan and South Korea, and more than three times what it costs in the US.Little wonder, then, that in the first six months of this year, India has barely added half a million subscribers (256 kbps). In comparison, China is adding 1.5 million new subscribers, most of them using 1-2 mbps lines, every month.
I really enjoyed reading the story — instead of hyping the numbers like some of the other studies / reports, it paints a more realistic picture. All hope is not lost though - one look at the figure (1) below and you’ll notice that though India has miserable numbers when it comes to broadband penetration, it has the highest rate of growth (93.39% for Q1 2007) for broadband connections in the world. Something to cheer about ?
Give it a read here and let me know what you think.
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