The Hindu : Multiple access options for Internet in India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 04, 2003

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Multiple access options for Internet in India

By Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore Jan. 3. The Internet, as we know it today, — a global network of computers and communication used by over 600 million people worldwide (20 million of them in India) — was born 20 years ago.

That was when the ARPANET, a command and communication network created by the U.S. Defence Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), was effectively ``gifted'' to the civilian sector and a new protocol — the set of rules used to connect large numbers of networks together, each with its own ``address'' — begun. This standard — TCP/IP or Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol — used the word ``Internet'' for the first time.

It remains the protocol that drives the Internet even today and the man who spearheaded the development that came into effect in the first few days of January 1983, was Vinton G. Cerf, then with the ARPA.

Today Cerf (60) is senior vice-president (architecture and technology) at WorldCom. At his own technology web page called ``Cerf's UP'', linked to the company's website (www.worldcom.com/global/resources/cerfs_up/), he welcomes fellow ``Internauts'' worldwide, and looks back on the astonishing growth of the Net in the last two decades, from a few hundred university and military sites in late 1982 to an estimated 605 million users in September 2002.

He warns that the world has to gear up to make another switch to a new protocol known as Internet Protocol IPv6 in 2006, and suggests that it is better to start early to avoid the tensions and hassles of that first implementation.

Veteran users this week are posting their own reminiscences of those pioneering days: many still proudly possess a T-shirt of the day which read: ``I survived the TCP/IP Transition!''

And WiredNews.com suggests that the changeover to TCP/IP was ``one small switch for man, but a giant switch for mankind.com''.

Indian developments

It was only after the World Wide Web (WWW) was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee — and the Netscape browser was launched in 1994 — that the average personal computer owner could really harness the Internet.

For Indian users, the Internet became a reality in August 1995, when the public sector Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) launched Internet services in the metros. The VSNL's monopoly ended in November 1998 when the Internet Service Provider (ISP) business was thrown open to private players under the most liberal terms: even today the licence fee for ISPs is just Rs. 1 per year, compared to the lakhs that cellular phone providers have to shell out.

Fuelled by the privatisation wave, there are today just over 200 active ISPs, covering 340 towns in India. The subscription base was 3.8 million in September 2002 and is expected to cross 4 millions shortly.

Since most Internet accounts in India are used by multiple members, the user base of net-enabled Indians is about 20 million. Cybercafes and cyber ``dhabas'' numbering around 12,000, which offer amongst the cheapest access rates in the world (Rs. 15-20 per hour), also contribute to a more widespread usage. The VSNL (in which the Tata group acquired 45 per cent stake in February 2002) and Satyam, are the two largest ISPs, accounting for six lakhs subscribers each.

Other major ISPs are the government- owned MTNL and BSNL and the private sector Bharti and Dishnet.

While the growth of Internet in India has been fairly modest, by international standards, it is one of the few countries where all access technologies have been tried in addition to the most common telephone dial up connection.

Internet through cable has been pioneered here by providers such as Hathway, ZeeNext and Asianet.

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