All this, despite the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) officially declaring 2007 as the Year of Broadband. Yet, policy makers are undecided on changing the existing situation. Telecom minister Andimuthu Raja and secretary D.S. Mathur refused to answer BW’s queries on the issue. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman Nripendra Misra offered some hope saying, “The definition of broadband will change quickly.” The obvious question is: will it be defined as 512 kbps or 2 mbps?

Myopic Approach
For some nations, high-speed broadband is as much a priority as roads, rail, water and electricity. US President George W. Bush, for instance, has called for affordable high-speed Internet access for all Americans by the end of 2007. But in India, broadband continues to be overlooked as a tool for promoting economic prosperity. Globally, evidence suggests that economic impact shadows the introduction of high-speed broadband within months. That’s much faster than measures such as education, roads and infrastructure where the time lag between development and economic well-being could run into decades. “Internet access is emerging as one of the key indicators of economic progress,” says Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman and CEO of portal Rediff.com.

A study by US economists George Ford and Thomas Koutsky compares Lake County in Florida, US with similar Florida counties to study the impact of broadband on economic growth. Lake County began offering access to one of Florida’s most extensive municipal broadband networks to businesses, schools, hospitals and doctors. The study revealed that within 12 months, Lake County experienced 100 per cent higher economic activity compared to other Florida counties.

A growth model developed by US telecom major Verizon has concluded that Web-enabled shopping, commuting, entertainment and healthcare may have added $500 billion to US GDP in 2006. Another study by the Brookings Institution says, “Failure to improve broadband performance could reduce US productivity growth by 1 per cent per year or more.”