The Hindu Business Line : Some more way to go on the delivery

Electricity has been around for a long time now. But all of India is still to thrill to that current. A question of reach and delivery. Much the same is happening with the Internet.

IN my previous article on the Internet (Riding on hype for too long in eWorld dated December 11, 2002), we saw how the Internet was hyped out of all proportion without making its uses any clearer to the actual user. In this article, we look at the future scenario of the Net from the eyes of the average Indian.Does the average citizen want more information? At a logical level, all citizens desire more information. However, not all the time, nor on every occasion. Most likely, the gain from the additional information offsets the effort involved in obtaining that information. It is also logical that not everybody will be able to see the gain, certainly not on every occasion. The Internet as a repository of information is, therefore, of use to everybody at some point of time or the other.

Will the mere existence of unlimited information result in the extinction of the telephone directory as a medium? Chances are that it will call for substantial efforts on the part of several players to bring that about. Searching on the Internet is fast becoming an art in itself. To expect the average citizen to adopt a generic product in the place of a functional product appears, at this point of time, to be asking too much.

The technology pundits would have you believe that they can zap the information on which kind of restaurant is closest to you straight into your cell-phone as you walk along, complete with menus and promotions. But what is the realistic ability to provide these services, what kind of demand actually exists for these services, and how much are consumers willing to pay for them? We need to understand these issues before we can predict a future for the Internet in India.

A question of consumability

Can we provide the technology in a consumable form?

It is questionable whether we will be able to deliver even service in a consumable form. There are arguably less than 40 million Indians who speak and understand English. Beyond this, we are then talking about creating Web content for hundreds of dialects in Indian languages. The enormity of the task, and the associated costs, alone, would place the Internet beyond the medium-term reach of the average Indian.

For the moment, though, this should not dissuade altruists from trying to reach the Internet to the masses. The inability to purchase an air-conditioner should not prevent us from offering power supply to the masses. Electricity has several uses, and one of them is the air-conditioner. It can still operate fans and lights and still provide some level of comfort from the heat. Yet, despite the fact that power is something most of us take for granted, millions of farmers and households in India do not have access to electricity. Given a chance to pay prevailing market prices for electricity, the large majority protest. Demand is "desire backed by purchasing power". Reaching the Internet to the masses is laudable and should be done. However, we must accept that such a venture will cost the exchequer several millions of dollars, with the chances of investment recovery out of reach for several decades.

Is the opportunity cost of technology delivery worth it?

When road services are poor, and power availability cannot be assured, what use is information to the average Indian? Technologists would argue that at the time that when Maslow presented his thesis on the "hierarchy of needs", he did not envisage information as a key component in the hierarchy. The truth is that mankind has always been hungry for information. The Internet merely provides you a means of accessing it. Rapidly. So demand for the Internet depends on how badly people desire information. And demand can be created. There is a great opportunity for government agencies here to intervene and offer processed information to the consumer. For instance, the Government does use the Internet to offer examination results. In the process, the recipient gets to understand what technology can do for him. It saves the exchequer some money and time, and it also educates the user on the power of technology.

The gap is between the creative application of technology and the technology itself.

The fact that a positioning system can enable location of a restaurant is really intended to blow the mind of the average citizen into conjuring up applications that would collectively provide traction for the new technology/discovery. And it is precisely this traction that the Internet was seeking, when the bubble burst. On the negative side, the conjurers were fairly removed from the ground realities regarding the infrastructure as well as the customers' desire to adopt such practices. On the positive side, the Internet has unleashed a whole generation of dreamers, whose collective creativity may one day bring about enough traction to make this one of the most important creations of mankind, one that will genuinely make its impact felt on the world. Before that happens in India, however, some things need to change.

Infrastructure missing

India has one of the lowest penetrations of telephone lines in the world. The quality of the telephone lines leaves a lot to be desired. The privatisation of basic telephone services is a move in the right direction. Over the next decade, one can hope to see some improvement here. Private players will obviously need to first tap the more lucrative urban markets, and wean away the high-value customers, before they address telephone services for the masses.

Poor bandwidth has been the bane of even early adopters of the Internet. In fact, the promise of a good connection has been far in excess of the reality, leading to disillusioned trial customers. These jaded early adopters of the Internet must be brought back to the fold with improved bandwidth that fulfils the original promise and more.

Community device may do it

The delivery of the Internet needs to be re-thought.

The arrival of the Internet gave a new lease of life to the PC. Once again, it brought new users into the fold and as new applications were unravelled, more and more customers adopted the PC. After all, this was the sole means of accessing information over the Internet.

In as much as PC adoption itself has not crossed the chasm in India, the PC as the main means of accessing the Internet remains a formidable hurdle that must be crossed. At the moment, there does not seem to be any immediate solution in the vicinity. The Internet, in its current avatar, is a single-user interface. The television in India, on the other hand, is very much a community device. Community devices have more of a place in India than single-user devices. It is unlikely that a family will find a convergent device of great enough value since too many members of the family stand to lose. To argue that the second TV will penetrate the household is a self-defeating one, especially if price is the main justification for the birth of the set-top box. If it is connectivity that is the main argument in favour of a set-top box, then once again, the investments called for in bringing about the same in a channel that is fragmented and poorly educated will be a horrendous task.

Thus, so long as the PC remains the sole means of accessing the Internet, and so long as citizens continue to fear such an appliance, the adoption of the Internet in India will take several decades to reach the mainstream. Till technology delivers an interface that is more user-friendly, we can safely assume that Internet access will remain the preserve of the privileged and big business. Yet, there is little doubt that technology will stumble on the answer one of these days. Until then, we have to rely on creative applications of the Internet to see us through.

The author is a Strategic Marketing consultant who can be reached at rnaru@nett10.com

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