CII + IMRB along with industry partners conduct Connect200* conference every year. The theme this year – India 2009-2014: Broadband Roadmap for Inclusive Growth [Inclusive Growth, aha! reminds me of India is Shining LOL]. Chandrajit Banerjee of CII and Manoj Kohli of Bharti Airtel are the Chairpersons leading this Cloud Nine revolution. Mr. Kohli is surely quixotic in his vision 🙂
The funny part is the report acknowledges that India will fall short of 20 mn connections by 2010 and yet again sets another extremely ambitious target of 214 mn broadband connections by 2014. Here is the breakdown for Vision 2014,
- 170 mn Homes
- 34 mn MSMEs
- 9 mn Educational Institutes
- 1.5 mn Public Access Points
They are also hoping to have per Mbps as specific benchmarks to be monitored and met over a period of time. Further,
It is felt that at least 50% connections should be 2 Mbps and above by the year 2014. A tax free PC rental and free broadband trial for 3 months at an investment of Rs. 8 billion could also be considered if found feasible.
Are they taking into account forthcoming 3G subscribers who will have access to 256 Kbps data access ? Getting access to the complete report was not possible [as though it is a Top Secret Defense Document]
I don’t think any Telco has enjoyed ~ 100% YoY CII projected growth except in theory mathematician Euler did or Google did in the number of search queries 🙂 I’ll leave the leaders to comment on the CII – IMRB Broadband India Shangri-La 🙂