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V. Rishi Kumar

The push for broadband is just beginning here but holds out a lot of promise, says this player.

THERE is excitement in the air - and quite a bit of it can be tracked to developments in the cellular industry, and the growth of broadband. Ashok Juneja, Chief Executive Officer of Bharti Broadband Networks Ltd, which is part of the Bharti group, says the broadband push has only just begun with DSL (digital subscriber loop), cable and wireless options. The traditional dial-up access is now being augmented, and in some cases, replaced by these new, more robust access media. At last count, DSL alone was adding about 10,000 subscribers per month — but, again, the push is only just beginning.

For instance, in Western markets, particularly in the US, broadband is well established through DSL, cable and satellite. And now wireless options such as radio and Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) are gaining ground. Penetration figures have already hit 40-50 per cent in some countries. In China, wireless options are gaining ground. And, of course, the penetration of broadband access in markets such as Singapore, Japan and Korea is very well known. The need for broadband access has grown rapidly as the discerning consumer has matured beyond browsing and e-mail to downloads of music and video in the convergence era. Enterprise applications have become hungrier for bandwidth, which traditional means, such as dial-ups, are not able to support. In the small and medium enterprise (SME) segment, even e-mail applications with heavy attachments can run into hitches in the dial-up medium. And so, the move from dial-up to broadband access is gathering momentum, he says. Also, with an expanding consumer base, the cost of customer premises equipment is going down, further lowering the entry barriers.

With the passage of time, growth inhibitors are going down and "increasingly we see fewer hurdles," says Juneja who feels the environment is turning conducive. "We, at Bharti," Juneja says "are driving this change — having opened up a new gateway through our Network i2i submarine cable, with capacity all the way to the US." Bharti is well- positioned for this business opportunity, operating both in the carrier as well as the end customer space (enterprise and retail), he says.

"We are the `carrier of carriers' for ISPs such as Sify, Net4India and Data Access in the country today and have a healthy enterprise business." Also, "through TouchTel ZipNet DSL, we are building a strong presence in the retail segment. We are at a take-off point for the corporate and dense segments and have begun to witness strong growth in all segments," he says. Bharti Broadband is amongst the first to leverage this opportunity and is targeting a big chunk of this business, he says.

In the domestic market, the key driver for the growth of broadband will be price. Various initial forays such as cable modem did not lead the charge, he says, because they were considered expensive. "While cable TV will continue to have its say, I don't see broadband applications replicating this," he says. Dial-up to cable is not favourable as it works out to be relatively expensive. Therefore, there is preference for broadband, both for bandwidth as also to leverage the advantages of cost. Initial trends indicate that youth are driving this change towards adoption of broadband applications. It is principally driven by their quest to seek better education and entertainment. This will be gradually supported by other applications such as Internet telephony, as is the case with Japan, and gaming-related activities in Korea, he says.

vrishi@thehindu.co.in

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