Broadband in India would be free?

Internet users in India reached 37 million in the month of September 2006. During the same period the number of active users rose to 25 million, according to recently released survey reports from the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI-IMRB).The future estimated projection of Internet users is the following:

-Sept 2006: 37m ever users and 25m active users
-March 2007: 42m ever users and 28m active users
-March 2008: 54m ever users and 43m active users

"Active user" is defined as someone who has used the Iternet at least once in the last 30 days, while "ever user" is someone who has used the Internet at least once.

So imagine what would be the future of Indian internet if the broadband connection becomes free in India !!

Yes you heard it right, there are plans to make broadband connection free in India.




The government proposes to offer all citizens of India free, high-speed broadband connectivity by 2009, through the state-owned telecom service providers BSNL and MTNL. While consumers would cheer, the move holds the potential to kill the telecom business as we know it.

The government of India plans to achieve free broadband connectivity at a speed of 2 MB per second across the country. Senior government officials expect to be able to achieve this goal spending only a portion of the corpus of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

All telecom operators contribute 5% of their revenues every year to USOF. It is estimated that the unutilised sum from the USOF has touched Rs 9,194.12 crore by March, 2007-end.


The department of telecom (DoT) will be taking a series of steps to make its plans for free broadband a reality. These include, using the USOF to set an extensive optic cable network across the country, opening up the long-distance sectors to further competition, allowing free and fair access to cable landing stations, permitting the resale of bandwidth, setting up web hosting facilities within the country and asking all internet service providers to connect to the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).
Source:(Economic Times)

Long back, Rajiv Gandhi had a dream that he wanted a TV in each house of India. May be after this "Free Broadband" we will have internet in each house of India. Not bad.

Go India !!