The Hindu Business Line : Net downloads to get faster

NEW FACILITY: Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology, and Mr Mats Granryd, Managing Director, Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd, at the inauguration of Ericsson's new R&D facility in Chennai on Monday. - Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , Nov. 27

Come January, Indian consumers will be treated to very high speeds of internet downloads with unlimited broadband being made available to them, promises the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr Dayanidhi Maran. "Goodbye 256 kb," he said on Monday, on the sidelines of a meeting here.

The public sector telecom companies, BSNL and MTNL, are working towards "proactive pricing". He spoke of "unlimited broadband" to be made available, but when pressed for details he said, "that is all I am allowed to say at the moment."

According to Mr Maran, 2007 will see a number of milestones crossed in the telecom sector. "Unlimited broadband" is one of them.

The C-Dot Alcatel joint venture in Chennai will come out with equipment for WiMax. With the low-cost equipment from the WiMax, usage will increase.

The year will also see a base created for increased telephone penetration in India. This is because, the Government will put to use the Rs 7,000-odd crore collected from various telecom companies for their failing to fulfil their Universal Service Obligation.

The USO funds are now being used to subsidise infrastructure costs in rural areas. Mr Maran said in about a year, about 8,000 towers would be put up in rural areas.

Because each tower could be used by at least six telecom companies, the infrastructure costs— already subsidised— will come down further, leading to more rural subscribers.

In his address at the inauguration of Ericsson's R&D facility here, Mr Maran said that by the third quarter of next year, the country's telephone subscribers would go up to 25 crore, from 17.6 crore now. At present, of the 17.60 crore, 13 crore were mobile phone subscribers and the other 4.6 crore land-line.

While the number of land line subscribers was rather stagnant, the country was adding about 60 lakh mobile subscribers each month, he said. Mr Maran said he expected the number of phone users to go up to 50 crore by 2010.

The Minister used the opportunity to make a sales pitch for Tamil Nadu. He pointed out to Ericsson officials that Nokia, which produces 40 lakh mobile phones a month from its plant near Chennai, found its operations here 11 per cent cheaper than in China.

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