It will be very difficult for foreign customer interaction companies to digest.

Most of the emails that Voice&Data receives asks about processes, capability of agents and even labour issues and ACDs. But talk to any CEO of an Indian contact centre. Half the time he will talk/boast/complain about the leased line connectivity. "Getting a simple 2 MB IPLC from VSNL and staying assured that it will work all the time is a major problem in India," says one such company. Surprising but most of the management time in the project planning stage goes in thinking about an IPLC. A few companies have actually taken licence for Internet gateway just to serve their own contact centers.

"Delhi might have ten more advantages like cheaper real estate, better availability of manpower but Mumbai scores in connectivity front. And you will see more and more companies opening their facilities in Mumbai," predicted the top executive of a consulting company about five months back. Today, it seems so prophetic.

"You have to be in this business to know how important it is," said another CEO of a call centre company. Especially when you have to sign SL As with your clients and you do not get SLA from your connectivity provider.

Unless the government does something about this, the problem of connectivity may actually impede the growth of this business in India.