Broadband

Light Reading is carrying a succinct article on why telco majors in India believe WiMAX will be the one. The article also outlines the reasons why the Indian broadband industry is where it is today, along with a few choice quotes like the following:

"It's absolutely abysmal compared to other countries with equal per capita GDP," says Ravi Bhagavan, vice president at consultancy Galileo Global Advisors, noting that the government's broadband policy target was to have 3 million subscribers by the end of 2005. "Talk about aiming at the sky and shooting the treetops...in fact I think they hit the trunk."

The Hindu Business Line has a write-up, albeit with no conclusive answers, on why VSNL and Reliance - both companies backed by the two largest business families in the country - are yet/unable to make their big push into the broadband sector.

Reliance Infocomm has barely any retail broadband customers. Its metro-ethernet plan involved bringing fibre right to the buildings; the company has wired up thousands of buildings across the country.

The DoT is seeking the release of allocated spectrum for use in WiMAX networks. The spectra in question are currently being used by the Department of Space for satellite comunications.

"Some spectrum on 2.3-2.5 Ghz band have been made available to the operators going for Wimax roll-out. We have to coordinate with department of space for releasing spectrum 3.3-3.8 Ghz as well as 2.5-2.7 Ghz band so that we can give it to Wimax operators. But it will take time," DoT sources said.

The IMI has threatened to:

take "appropriate civil and criminal action" against over 600 websites and 30 Indian Internet service providers (ISPs) — including the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) — for "not preventing" the unauthorised downloading of online music.

Besides addressing music downloads, the IMI is also trying to take action against websites offering pirated ring-tones.

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.

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.