The number of Internet subscribers declined, showing a negative growth of 10 percent. In terms of numbers, it went down from 2.8 million to 2.5 million. The total number of operational ISPs came down to 130. To facilitate the process of ISPs to get out of the business, DoT came up with a guideline simplifying the procedure for their exit. In all, DoT had issued a total of 436 licenses till the end of March 2002. The industry grew at a CAGR of 41.13 percent over the period of last four years.

Total revenue in the fiscal 2001-02 reached a figure of Rs 1,123.8 crore as compared to Rs 971 crore in FY 2000-01.

The process of shakeout began with four national ISPs, some from the stables of India’s leading corporate houses, shutting down their operations completely. BPLNet’s operations were taken over by Delhi-based Data Access. The deal will allow Data Access’s NOW to extend its operation in south. WiproNet, the corporate ISP arm of Wipro exited from the scene with Sify acquiring its customers. Jain Internet too exited the business altogether. With Reliance launching its countrywide network parallel to BSNL, and its plans to offer high speed corporate Internet services, it will provide wide options to corporates to choose from the range of services on offer. Even Bharti Broadband integrated its operation and is providing an integrated solution to corporates. MTNL and BSNL, seeing the competition coming in, have put their acts together and become aggressive and are offering cutting-edge technologies like VPN. The growth status of broadband access during the fiscal 2001-02 remained far from satisfactory, largely due to the lack of content, compounded by last-mile problems. Cable and DSL option continued its phase of experimentation with Internet over Ethernet, apart from a selected ISPs who went ahead with their fixed wireless access plans for the corporates.

EXPERTS PANEL Ajay Data, MD, Data Infosys Prasoon Srivastava, general manager (infrastructure solutions group), Tata Internet Services R Ramaraj, CEO, Sify