• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• BL Club
• Smartbuy
• Books

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

L.N. Revathy

Coimbatore, Dec 28 While Asia tops in Internet usage, North America has taken the lead in Internet penetration.

However, in India, less than 50 per cent of the people use the Internet, although the number is said to be growing by the minute. It is said to have increased 30 per cent compared to 2007.

The broadband penetration has continued to remain low at 5 million against the country’s population of over 1.2 billion.

Studies show that 91 per cent of the people in India use the Net primarily for e-mailing, while over 80 per cent use it as a social media platform. Job search, information search and instant messaging and chat account for 72, 49 and 70 per cent respectively.

While the dependence on the Net is rising leaps and bounds, cyber laws are not in place and cyber security awareness among users is pathetic, say experts.

Sharing her thoughts on Net penetration and its status in India, Ms Srishti Sofat, Country Manager, InfoSpace, said the company witnessed a 23 per cent increase in Internet users as at the end of October and 26 per cent increase in domain registrations during the first quarter of 2008 compared with the corresponding quarter of the earlier year.

“The Net is used as a tool for discovery, research, communication and efficiency,” she said.

Mr Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner, said while Net penetration continued to rise in the country, the number of users accessing the Net from cyber cafes (in urban areas) tended to slip in the last couple of months. He attributed this to increased PC penetration in urban areas, users sensing Net access at cyber café to be uneconomical and insistence of identity proof at browsing centres.

“The number of users of the Internet service is only around 35-38 per thousand compared to the global penetration of 68-plus per thousand. This is due to bad user experience, high level of piracy with instances of even the operating system being pirated and security concerns,” Mr Chakraborti reasoned.

Notwithstanding such concerns, the penetration of the Net has progressed from an experiment to utility and is expected to eventually entwine in the fabric of society.

The Net is used extensively to do job search, ticketing – both travel and entertainment, online trading, banking, information search and online gaming, apart from chats and e-mails.

An IAMAI’s Report on Online Banking has estimated the online banking service users at 16 million by 2008.

Though the figures are not out yet, there has been a significant rise in Internet banking over the past three years with banks offering some form of service, be it checking balance online, bill payments or simple cash transfers. Internet banking has been fuelled by broadband availability.

“Speed continues to be lower than developed economies. A new level of bandwidth augmentation is required to ensure quality experience with services such as Video on Demand. We also need a strong framework for issuance of net connections such as the process followed for cell phone,” Mr Vardhman Jain, Managing Director (Insurance and Business Process Solutions) of Perot Systems, said.

More Stories on : Broadband | Internet | E-Commerce & E-Business

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line