Internet Services in India were launched on August 15, 1995 by the Government of India through Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited. Even before that ERNET of the then Department of Electronics (now known as Department of Information Technology) was facilitating networking among leading educational and research institutions. Similarly NIC provided such services to government agencies.

Recognizing the need for encouraging spread of Internet in the country, government opened the sector to private operators for providing internet services with nominal fee of Re 1 only. More than 95 percent subscribers were using dial up access with a limited speed of 56 Kbps. Initially the subscriber base grew more than 200 percent per year.

To encourage broadband growth in the country TRAI came out with a consultation paper on accelerating growth of internet and broadband penetration in November 2003 and sent its recommendation to the government in April 2004. Subsequently, Department of Telecom issued a broadband policy in October 2004.

The growth of internet and broadband penetration has not been as per the expectations. As on December 31, 2005 although the total Internet users in the country were 6.7 million there were only 0.9 million broadband subscribers. Thus, the target for internet connections was achieved but the target for broadband subscribers could not be achieved. Further at the end of June 2007, the internet subscribers were 47.24 million but broadband subscribers were just 2.42 million.

The urgency to provide impetus to the growth of broadband is recognized at the highest level and government had declared year 2007 as Year of Broadband.

To accelerate the growth of broadband in the country, TRAI proactively identified certain impediments affecting growth of broadband and sent its recommendation to the Department of Telecom which includes ISPs should be allowed to use any media (including fiber, radio and copper cable), for establishing last mile connectivity to their customer, recognizing the need to reduce internet bandwidth cost, TRAI fixed tariff ceiling for domestic leased line and international private leased circuits, TRAI issued regulation on international telecommunication access to essential facilities at cable landing stations in June 2007, TRAI sent its recommendation on allocation and pricing of spectrum for 3G and broadband wireless access services in September 2006, recommendations on improvement in the effectiveness of NIXI" in April 2007, TRAI had also recommended, unbundling of the local loop, which government felt could be considered if the fixed line operators with ownership of last line did not meet the broadband targets. Today broadband subscribers hardly touch 6.6 millions and are way behind target of 20 million by 2010.

Access to affordable high-speed internet and mobile phone service are keys to economic growth in developing countries, World Bank says in a new report. Information and Communications for development report of 2009, observed that for every 10 percentage-point increase in high-speed internet connections there is an increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points. Internet users in developing countries increased tenfold from 2000 to 2007, and there are now over four billion mobile phone subscribers in developing countries, said Mohsen Khalil, World Bank Group Director for Global Information and Communication Technologies. These technologies offer tremendous opportunities, says Khali. Higher broadband penetration can boost economic growth. The collective gross domestic product of Asia can generate an additional USD 150 billion-USD 180 billion as well as generate more than 6.5 million jobs if Asia can be on par with Western Europe in broadband penetration, according to McKinsey & Co Inc (Malaysia).

Governments can work with the private sector to accelerate the rollout of broadband networks, and to extend the access to low-income consumers. Government of India in the recent past has come out with a number of initiatives to accelerate the growth of broadband both for rural and urban areas. The Government policies and initiatives are fully backed by political will as well. The two major political parties had declared broadband necessity and penetration in their political manifestos for the recent general election in the country. In the meantime some of the initiatives have been taken: The Department of Telecom set a target for broadband coverage for all secondary and higher secondary schools, all public health care centers by year 2007 and coverage to all grampanchyats by the year 2010, The Universal Obligation Fund (USFO) support for rolling out broadband service in rural areas, broadband connectivity would be provided to 100,000 Community Service Centers (CSC) in the villages of India. The scheme has been approved at a total cost of Rs. 5742 crore. The CSC will be launched under PPP model. The CSC will offer a number of value added services to the citizen such as railway booking and reservation facilities, examination results of all school and colleges, payments to government basic certificates or documents obtainable from government, Ministry of HRD has a very ambitious program to provide tele-education the Department of Information Technology (DIT) has drawn up a National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) for delivering Government and private services at the doorsteps of the citizen, the scheme for the establishing State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) has been approved in 22 States /Union Territories with total outlay of Rs. 3,334 crore over a period of 5 years, extending data connectivity of 2 Mbps, State Data Centers are meant for the states to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of Government to Government (G2G), Government to Citizen (G2C), and Government to Business (G2B) services.

Technologies that can provide broadband access are DSL/ADSL over copper loop, cable TV network, DTH, satellite, fiber, wireless, broadband over power lines, and other technologies such as WiFi, WiMAX, 3G and CDMA and iBurst. The key drivers for broadband are, e-Commerce (according to a survey, e-commerce industry in India was worth Rs. 9210 crore at the end of 2007-08 with growth rate of about 30 percent), online utility bill payment (research by IAMAI showed that there would be 1.8 million Indians who may pay online bills by 2007-08), e-Education and e-Learning, entertainment and infotainment (IPTV and Video on Demand), e-Governance (Land records, Birth and Death Certification), e-Health (it is life saving application for rural population, doctors in city hospitals can see and prescribe medicines for remote patients), e-Agriculture (distance advise can be given for dealing with crop disease so that right pesticide/fertilizer can be applied), and employment( Employment information can be accessed for thousands of jobs)

Implementation of broadband. Broadband is accessing through DSL in urban areas. Presently DSL is the preferred technology for broadband access world over. The situation in India is no different. At the end of March 2009, out of 6.22 million broadband subscribers approximately 69.30 percent were using DSL technology.

The incumbents BSNL and MTNL have massive deployment of DSL over copper line, but they have failed to reach the target given by the government. What worrying is the speedy decline in fixed line phones? From 39.42 million in QE March, 2008 to 37.90 million in QE December, 2008 and then a nominal recovery to 37.96 million in QE March, 2009. Shortage and high cost of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) for broadband and shortage of CPEs is one of the reasons for slow provisioning of broadband by incumbents. Usually CPEs are being provided by service provider since the operators are able to procure them at competitive prices. While cost of desktop and laptop computers have become competitive, they are still beyond the reach of a common man

Broadband over cable TV. Presently there are 71 million cable TV households in India. Some of cable TV operators are successfully providing broadband access; but there is investment to be made. For encouraging such investments soft loans could be provided.

Broadband through DTH. Presently there are 13 million DTH homes. DTH is proliferating quickly in urban areas and is presently meant for broadcasting of TV channels only. It can be utilized for downlink path for providing broadband connection with a download speed upto 1.5 Mbps. DTH uses Ku-band (10-18GigaHz) to maintain smaller dish size (40-60 cm) at customer premises.

Broadband over fiber. There is very large deployment of fiber by the access providers and National Long Distance Operators (NLDO). While fiber to the kerb is available at many locations from where enterprises as well as households could be accessed, there is lack of Right of Way (RoW). The fees demanded by the municipal authorities is very high and the process is time consuming. There is no ubiquitous scheme or mechanism to deal with the problem.

Broadband through wireless technologies. Technologies such as 3G and WiMAX can provide effective wireless broadband service. The Government could expedite the decision for launch of 3G, WiMAX service and spectrum allocation to the private operators.

Content application over broadband. Broadband is content hungry. Presently most of the internet based content is in English. For proliferation of broadband it will be necessary to develop content in local language so that common people could get services in a manner which they could comprehend. There is need for development of a holistic policy for broadband ecosystem in the country. The IPTV Forum is interacting with the concerned authorities and organizations to develop such an approach.