Fortunately, BSNL promises an early escape from this scenario. It aims to connect over 500,000 new broadband subscribers a month, starting January 2008. And Reliance Communications is planning to connect 500,000 villages through optic fibre cable or WiMax. Reliance’s next focus will be on the 8 million SMEs that will be connected via wireless broadband. “We will then get to the consumer segment with offers on IPTV, digital home solutions, and home camera surveillance,” says Bajpai.

But it is for one of the PSU telcos to take the lead in setting the price trends. Strategic pricing by BSNL could do to broadband what it did to mobile telephony. The other PSU, MTNL, has signed a $41.6-million (Rs 166.4-crore) contract with Sterlite Optical Technologies of Vedanta group to design, develop and implement a high-speed network targeted at enterprise customers in Mumbai. J. Gopal, MTNL’s executive director and head of the Mumbai circle, has set a target of converting at least 40 per cent of his 2.5 million landline subscribers to broadband by March 2008. He says MTNL will double its subscribers to a million in both Delhi and Mumbai. MTNL has also forged a strategic alliance with America Online’s India subsidiary AOL Online India for a co-branded portal.

As a telecom industry expert says, “After all, if India can beat China in monthly mobile subscriber additions month after month, there is no reason why that cannot happen in broadband too.” But with odds so heavily stacked against India, that seems like a pipedream for now, barring a miracle.