On Thursday, the Indian government has set its aim of getting 250 million broadband subscribers by 2012. The government took this dcision stating that the number of broadband subscribers in India have not grown in the same proportion to the increase in number of mobile phone subscribers.
According to the government data, at resent there are only 8 million braodband users and 12 million subscribers using other internet connections, in comparison to the 500 million mobile users.
P.J. Thomas, secretary, Department of Telecommunications said that by May 2012, the government is aiming to put every village panchayat on broadband highway. He also added that to provide last mile connectivity in the villages a scheme for deployment of wireless broadband technology using broadband wireless access has been drawn by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
He declared all these shemes of government at a conference organised by the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI). The ISPAI has the responsibilty of campaigning for promoting internet and broadband.
P. J. Thomas also remarked at the conference that a large proportion of Indian population is still need to be connected on the wireless. According to him it has been recognised to a great extent that Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) acts as catalyst for economic development.
In support of his views he referred to the study recently conducted in three countries of Asia. He revealed that according to this study, it has been confirmed that introduction of wireless in telecom has resulted in a growth of 0.06 percent of the GDP in India in comparison to a growth of 0.04 percent of the GDP in China under same circumstances.
Many other issues also have been discussed at the conference which included regulatory, technology and infrastructure related issues concerning a cross-section of industry sectors,ranging from e-governance and e-education to manufacturing.