Nasscom considers that there are two broad ‘bandwidth’ challenges to India that need to be addressed on priority by 2005:

• To enable, through the operation of a vigorous and innovative market, the creation, in any location, of centers of Indian ‘bandwidth excellence’ which are capable of matching the bandwidth supply conditions in terms of innovation, quality and price for bandwidth prevailing in the emerging centers of e-commerce excellence in North America and Europe and

• At the same time to find appropriate and empowering ways of meeting the challenges of providing affordable, quality and timely access to bandwidth, to enable Indians living in regional, rural and remote areas to participate fully in the information economy.

Nasscom recognizes that the existing predominantly telephony-based regulatory and policy environment is no longer tenable in an era of diverse and multiple communication needs. Nasscom considers that the way these objectives are met, needs to be re-thought creatively towards a quite different globalized environment which is being increasing dominated by an Internet paradigm.

Global outlook

A revolution in information networking is creating an unprecedented global change and is vividly brought out by the following mind-blowing statistics:

• While it took a century to install the world’s first 700 million phone lines, 700 million more lines will be required over the next 15-20 years. This means 630,000 lines during the next week

• There are more than 200 million wireless subscribers in the world today. There will be 700 million more over the next 15-20 years—50,000 each day

• While there are more than 200 million cable TV subscribers in the world today, there will be 300 million more over the next 15-20 years

• In the next two years, there will be 1,000 new providers of telephone, Internet and wireless communication services

• 58 million Km of fiber cable is to be globally deployed during 2000—enough to circle globe 1,450 times.

Globally, communication ‘consumption’ is increasing, spurred by low costs and high bandwidths. As the world adopts the ‘network computing’ model, the requirements for communication infrastructure will grow exponentially. To meet this demand, practically all components of telecommunication technologies are turning digital with the price-performance ratio halving every 18 months. Thus, high bandwidths are increasingly emerging as the standard for networking applications.

Three key international trends are expected to drive them:

INCREASES IN CAPACITY: Submarine fiber optic capacities for both Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific routes are expected to increase four to seven folds by 2000 as against 1996.

FALL IN TELECOM COSTS: International telecom costs are in a free fall. Costs of leased circuits between Europe and the US have dropped to 50-80% of 1990 price levels.

DEMAND FOR APPLICATIONS: Demand will grow for applications such as broadband Internet and multimedia that require significantly higher bandwidth than today’s applications.

Bandwidth will increase to accommodate Internet content such as image files, video-laden Web pages, animation and streaming media. By year 2002, it is expected that 25% of the US Internet users will have broadband access and e-commerce players will launch broadband services, both in parallel to their existing narrow band and as exclusive services.

It is not surprising that several countries have been aggressively developing state-of-the-art national information infrastructure, which can leverage the global information infrastructure. Singapore and Malaysia are some of the examples in Asia, who are making huge strides in this area.

Singapore was the first country to develop an ATM base broadband multimedia network, which will help the country develop into a major IT hub for the Asia-Pacific region.

Malaysia has developed a multimedia super corridor by linking its 12 cities through a 700-km fiber optic backbone providing a bandwidth of 2.5-10Gbps. Access to this network is provided through fiber to the home. This facility is provided with guarantees of stringent performance levels and very low tariffs.

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