India’s state owned telecommunications body; the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has sold 250 ISP license applications since March this year. However only 16 firms have actually applied to DoT for their licenses. These include AT&T, British Telecom, MCI, Motorola and CompuServe. IBM and Microsoft have also shown interest in setting up ISPs in India. According to estimates its cost at $5m to set up a nation wide network capable of servicing 10,000 subscribers. This does not include the license fee and cost of leased lines from DoT and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, India’s state owned monopoly international carrier and ISP.
