Department of Telecom secretary P S Saran said the government is about to set up an Internet exchange. He said talks have started with Internet service providers, like Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Satyam.
"An Internet exchange where calls can be transferred from one ISP to another should be set up by all providers and not just some leading ones," he said while inaugurating a two-day seminar VSAT and Internet India 2000.
The exchange is expected to be active in another nine to 12 months, he added. Saran also said six transponders with the extended C-band would be given to VSAT players, along with additional bandwidth by the end of this week. The government is in the process of allotment of Ku-band from the just-launched INSAT-3B satellite. The process will be completed in about six weeks.
With the opening up of the Ku band, the requirement would cross the available bandwidth. However, the department of space was committed to add from the global and foreign satellites to fulfil this requirement. Saran, however, said certain issues like the licence fee for Ku-band has to be sorted out. He said with the opening up of national long-distance telephony, VSAT players can become infrastructure providers and link their bandwidth to people. This would be possible since many transponders will switch to the Ku band.
As a result of Insat 3B launch, transponders will change into higher Ku band, since in the near future a major growth would come from high-speed users, Saran said. The DoS should look into facilitating this growth through VSAT, he added. Speaking at the seminar, ISRO's Deepti Raastogi said VSAT operations and the Internet have seen a rapid growth in recent years, and the problems affecting the VSAT industry would be over now that Insat 3-B has been launched.
VSAT Service Providers Association (VSPA) president and HCL Comnet executive vice-president Sanjeev Nikore said the VSAT business will grow in quantum and not in percentile and VSATs have now emerged as a strong alternative to the Internet.
Internet Service Providers Association of India secretary Amitabh Singhal said the Internet subscriber base has crossed the one million mark in April and India is well on its way to achieve the 7.5 million mark by 2003.
He, however, said there are certain issues the industry is facing, one being the quality of service which depends on the basic service operators. The availability of resources will be sorted out in a few months, he said.
A Net exchange where calls can be transferred from one ISP to another should be set up by all providers, and not just some leading ones P S Saran, DoT secreatry
