internet.quillem.com

An article in the Hindustan Times states that a report by market research firm eTForecasts places India's online population at 50.6 million. This places us in fourth spot behind the US [197.8 M], China [119.5 M] and Japan [86.3 M].

It is however unknown how exactly these figures were calculated. An earlier report released by the TRAI placed the number of Internet subscribers in the country at 6.1 million.

Intel launched its new dual-core mobile processr - the Centrino Duo, a couple of days ago in Bombay. The processor was largely designed in Intel's Bangalore centre.

"We view it as the second major leap forward for the company since the launch of the Pentium processors in 1993. In the context of mobility, the technology is nothing short of a revolution," Mr. Anand said. Lavish in praise for the development team from Bangalore, he said that by the year 2007, almost every laptop being sold would have a component designed by Intel India.

Triple Play services are apparently in the closing stages of various technical trials around the country, and will possibly be rolled out as early as "early 2006".

"We are in talks with Bharti for trial in Mumbai, but we will be looking at non-exclusive tie-ups across the country," said Hathway Cable & datacom, MD and CEO, K Jayaraman.

Siticable will be tying up with Railtel for voice and has already developed a three-in-one modem for voice, video and telephony in-house through its technical arm Pacenet. The company will roll out its service in the next two months. Hinduja brothers-promoted InCable is believed to be conducting technical trials. State-owned MTNL will start its video service in Delhi and Mumbai by early March this year, and has tied up with Time Broadband Services to source video content.

As covered previously, BSNL appear to be actively pursuing FTTH as a viable last-mile solution.

"BSNL is keen to procure Fibre to the Home (FTTH) equipment for providing the next generation broadband services to its customers. We have invited expression of interest for procurement of GPON-based FTTH equipment, being the new technology," said a BSNL official. Equipment vendors, including Alcatel and Cisco, are expected to bid for the project.

As part of the SEA-ME-WE-4 network, India and Pakistan will be linked together via a fibre-optic land cable system, across the Wagah border. Both Bharti and VSNL have stakes in the cable consortium, while PTCL represent Pakistan's interests.

The TRAI has released ISP market figures for the quarter ending September 2005.

Summarised figures of the top five ISPs (quarter ending September 2005) were reported as follows:

Total Internet subscriber base: 6.125 million [3.95% quarterly growth]
The above figures include all modes of Internet access.

The TRAI released a draft recommendation [PDF] last week to promote speedier transition to IPv6 in the country. Among other points, the regulatory body recommended the enlargement of the current ERNET IPv6 test bed to increase participation, and encourage the migration of institutions such as NIXI, C-DAC to IPv6.

RajIV, an Andhra Pradesh government undertaking, has received a private sector fillip following tie-ups with companies like ICICI, Hutch, Naukri.com et al. in bringing broadband connectivity to villages across the state.

"There are around 20 other companies, including seeds and fertiliser companies, that are looking at expanding their reach through Internet as well as physically through our kiosks," Myneni said. This apart, there are some organisations that are looking at tying up with the consortium to provide weather information, etc, to farmers as well.

Lightreading has an interesting write-up on the steady influx of venture capital funding into Indian telecom equipment manufacturing start-ups.

It's an outgrowth of the earlier investment waves, says Sanjay Nayak, Tejas's CEO and managing director. "So many large companies were doing outsourcing that a huge talent pool got exposed to their knowledge," he says. "We could literally pinpoint good people with experience."

As reported previously, the SEA-ME-WE-4 undersea cable linking 14 countries across Asia, Africa and Europe has gone live as scheduled. Both VSNL and Bharti have a stake in this joint venture. VSNL will also function as the primary network administrator of the venture.

India is now officially a bandwidth surplus country, and international bandwidth prices are expected to fall steadily as a result of this development.