Last fiscal the erstwhile Government-run    monopoly DoT was split into two—DoT and DTS—to differentiate the policy making and services aspect of its functioning. It was also an attempt to corporatize DoT in tune with the demands of times.

In the very first year of the corporatization process, DoT was faced with two challenges—technological upgrade and new business paradigms. Its telecom network had to be upgraded to carry higher bandwidth. New equipment capable of not only voice but also data and multimedia transmission needed to be put in place. Something had to be done to make its massive 4-lakh workforce more lean and mean. In addition, it realized that it desperately needed to learn the art of customer care.

Times have changed. Mere realization will not suffice. DoT must stop being a department and move on to become a resurgent communications company.

The advantage definitely lies with DoT—one of the largest networks in the world; several types of communications services that can complement each other; technical preparedness to implement backbone technologies like WDM, ATM, and Frame Relay; and access technologies like DSL and fibre in the local loop.

Here is an analysis of DoT role in three communication areas of high potential. You can then judge for yourself whether DoT can become India’s answer to NTT, BT, and AT&T.

DoT, the ISP

The upcoming National Internet Backbone (NIB) can be the trump card for DoT’s Internet services plans. But it needs to be revamped with multiples of giga bytes as its throughput rather than the stingy capacity that it is currently being built for. It has to be equally proactive and probably set up its own international gateways for international traffic. As a business strategy, DoT can try to be more aggressive in areas where the "A" Category ISPs do not have effective presence.

As of today, DoT services about 75,000 subscribers in 65 cities and towns in India. It does so by linking up to VSNL’s gateways in Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune. It was operating literally with no backbone until the NIB nodes became operational. The already existing voice transmission links were used as makeshift backbone links. Its subscriber base is less than that of VSNL and private players like Satyam Infoway and Bharti BT Internet. It is popularly perceived that DoT is providing services in remote parts due to compulsion than opportunity.

But will NIB be DoT’s elixir? Will it enable DoT to tap newer cities and towns? Will it help DoT to gather the largest Internet subscriber market share? The answer at present is, no.

The objective of NIB is to provide convenient and easy Internet Access Points (IAPs) in 549 cities and towns across the country. Out of the 549 points, 45 nodes are already operational. Out of them 5 nodes are of A1 type which are connected to each other in a mesh formation on a trunk line capable of 8 Mbps (E2) and upgradable to 34 Mbps (E3) and 155 Mbps (STM1) at later stages. The other 40 nodes are of A2 types each connected to two A1 stations via a link of 2 Mbps (E1) upgradable to 34 Mbps (E3) at a latter stage.

These throughputs appear insufficient for an ISP wanting to become the most dominant of all the existing players. The planned capacity of NIB is just 3,00,000 subscribers. This when the nation already had a booming subscriber base of close to 1 million by the end of last fiscal. This becomes further questionable considering a recent NASSCOM report, which says that on the national trunk routes and a few other routes the domestic bandwidth capacity is already 34 Mbps and yet inadequate.