There is a potential for 2,000% growth in broadband penetration across India in two years from now, says networking gear manufacturer Cisco on its website.
Independent writer Jason Deign wrote on the Cisco website that broadband is poised for explosive growth in India as rural areas gain access to the Internet.
The Indian government had aimed to have 20 million connections by the end of 2010, but there are roughly 11 million subscribers now, with most of them, or 5% of households that have broadband in India, in urban areas.
According to a report from management consulting firm Booz & Co, the picture is due to change radically with mobile networks poised to bring broadband to rural areas, home to more than 72% of India’s population.
Following the auction of 3G and 4G mobile spectrum in 2010, KTMT Consulting Director Mahesh Khera estimates that up to 50 million subscribers in India will log onto broadband using these networks in the next three years.
In addition, cable companies are expected to consolidate and upgrade last-mile connectivity in order to provide up to another 70 million connections in the next few years.
Online business models in India are limited due to low broadband penetration.
Deign wrote that as access to broadband grows across rural India, the focus of new business models is likely to be on public services such as telehealth, financial services, government administration, agribusiness, and learning.
As cable companies start to deliver broadband services to Indian homes, Khera says second TV sets could easily become a virtual classroom for the 88% of students who are denied college access.
"These are young people who are keen to study," Khera says.
"They have to work during the day but could study courses from 8 pm to 11 pm using a PC-over-TV service."
Booz principal Ashish Sharma also expects a huge explosion in user-generated services.
"We will see lots of new content business models, plus a migration of government services online, driven by a strong bottom-up pull," he says.
"Localization of content to suit particular communities and language groups has happened already in TV and written media," Sharma says.
"That will get emulated in digital media."
"You will see a lot of content going to non-traditional markets," Sharma predicts. "India has the ability to absorb technology and use it on its own terms. The results will surprise all of us."
Many of the applications, from online learning to localised or user-generated content, are likely to draw heavily on video, Deign wrote.
According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index study, India is expected to have more than 14 million Internet video users by 2014.
