With over 270 million subscribers -- that's the second largest after China -- and adding almost 9 million each month, India may have wowed the world by becoming the fastest growing telecom market. But, in terms of another major development indicator, broadband penetration, India still has a long way to go -- a very long way to go in fact.
According to the International Telecommunication Union's latest study on Asia-Pacific Telecom scene, at close-to-zero level of broadband penetration India is far behind most economies of the Asia-Pacific region. "India's success in telecom revolution is restricted to just mobile phone growth and that too in the voice segment while the country has very little to showcase in fixed line and Internet access, or high-speed broadband," says Vanessa Gray, the author of the report, entitled Asia-Pacific Telecommunication/ICT Indicators .
For a country that is the considered to be a global hub for IT/ITeS services and the world's back office, it is indeed strange that Internet penetration remains one of the lowest in the world. But for Gray, that is not really a surprise.
"There is a very strong link between income level and broadband penetration simply because broadband infrastructure is expensive," she says. "The per capita income of India [at about $1000] then doesn't allow the country to spend much on growing the broadband infrastructure and a low income level is also the reason why Indian government has a limited amount of influence on broadband penetration as well."
The other is big problem is the dispersement of population. About 65 percent of Indians still live in rural areas that suffer from very poor infrastructure -- like roads, electricity, etc -- and "that makes it very difficult to increase the level of broadband penetration," she says.
Moreover according to Rajesh Chharia, president, Internet Service Provider Association of India, "The dismal penetration could be attributed to a slew of other factors like government policy failures, inadequate of fixed line infrastructure, a barely profitable ISP business, and low domestic PC penetration."
Nevertheless, in terms of Information and Communication Technologies, Asia-Pacific is mind-boggling in many ways. It is home to almost half of the world's fixed telephone lines, and with over a billion mobile cellular subscribers, the region has the largest mobile phone market share globally. The other areas in which the region stands out most are, advanced Internet technologies including broadband Internet access and mobile data communications.
According to Gray in the region's high-income economies in particular, ubiquitous access is progressing through a competitive race to provide ever faster fixed broadband access. Operators in Hong Kong and Japan for instance have launched one-Gigabits per second broadband and triple-play services aimed at the residential market, featuring applications such as Internet telephony and television.
And Korea, which already leads the world in terms of the percentage of households with fixed broadband access, has also emerged as world leader in fibre optic connections, which is essential for supporting the next generation of ultra-high speed Internet applications.
ITU says that the Asia-Pacific region is the world's largest broadband market with a 39 percent share of the world's total at the end of 2007. In terms of broadband access, Asia-Pacific has made remarkable progress in the past few years, with subscriber numbers growing almost five-fold in five years: from 27 million at the beginning of 2003 to 133 million at the start of 2008.
But like India, not everyone in the region lives in the ultimate high-speed Internet access experience; and the contrast is stark.
"The regional broadband divide is striking, with poor economies having a close-to-zero broadband penetration, compared to that of rich economies where one in four persons is a broadband subscriber," says Gray
The gap in available broadband speeds between rich and poor countries is as wide as broadband penetration. In Japan, Korea and Hong Kong for example, the minimum advertised broadband speed is faster than the maximum broadband speed in Cambodia, Tonga, Laos and Bangladesh.
As far as India is concerned, the good news is that the low level of penetration is not going to last long. That's because, India has just released spectrum for rolling out 3G and WiMAX services-the next generation wireless technologies -- and those services are expected to start in about 6 months. "A lot might change once India launches its 3G network because that will help broadband penetration over the much cheaper mobile phone to spurt," says Gray.
Moreover, the 3G roll out will also encourage new operators, including foreign ones, to enter the Indian market. And that in turn could "stimulating competition, liberalizing the broadband business even further to make broadband access cheaper for higher broadband penetration," says Pradeep Baijal, a former telecom regulator.
