Opinion How the internet came to India with Archie and Veronica

How the internet came to India

On August 15, 1995, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, then a public sector company, launched internet access for the public at large. Limited to a few cities, users needed computers and fixed-line telephones; and, ventures like Samachar.com, Naukri.com and Rediff.com debuted. In 1999, one could order online books, sweets, vegetables and paan — the betel leaf. For the longest time, IRCTC was the leading E-Commerce/E-Governance application.

Today India has the world’s second largest base of Internet users. It is also projected to be the global leader in data usage by 2028. Both the direct and indirect contribution of the digital economy is rising in the Amrit Kaal. It is worth looking at how the internet has evolved and devolved over the past 25 years since the grant of the first ISP licence on November 6, 1998. Another ISP, Sify launched the service later that month thereby ending the VSNL monopoly. There was almost a nine-month delay in the entry of private ISPs caused by signing as the deponent in the legal challenge to the ISP policy announced on January 15, 1998. The intervention resulted in four significant improvements.

First, the annual licence fee was brought down from a few lakh rupees per annum to a nominal figure of just Rs 1 per annum (2.5 US cents at that time). Second, ISPs were permitted to establish the last mile. Third, they could establish international gateways. Last but not least, the scope of services became unlimited with the sole exception of internet telephony instead of being restricted in January to a list of dozen or so. There was even Archie and Veronica — a couple of search engines prevailing then. For anything else, one would have to go to the government on a case-by-case basis.

Lifting the final restrictions

The “provision of broadband for all” is the first objective of the National Digital Communication Policy, 2018. The New Telecom Policy of 1999 had aspired to ensure internet access to all district headquarters. The NTP 1999 reaffirmed outlawing internet telephony but indicated that the government would continue to monitor the innovations and review the situation. It was allowed in April 2002, albeit with restrictions on domestic use. Even though this legal restriction was lifted subsequently, it took almost a decade before it became a reality for the users and came in extremely handy during and beyond the pandemic.

Spectrum for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth was de-licensed in phases, starting with indoor or in-campus usage. Today, it is the foundation of PM-WANI. To facilitate and encourage more efficient routing of domestic traffic, the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) started in 2003 and soon after launched an online registration process for “.in” domain names doing away with the paperwork. Today, it offers domains in multiple Indian languages and runs the National Internet Registry for IP addresses.

The Challenge of the Unconnected

Despite tremendous progress, one-third of humanity remains unconnected. In India, it is almost half the population — mostly people with meagre incomes and those residing in rural or remote communities. The digital divide is accentuated across multiple axes — gender, language, age, disability and more.

The Universal Service Obligation Fund has been traditionally supporting infrastructure funding for optical fibre and mobile networks as well as satellite links. It is high time that it also spurs the demand side using the DBT platform across three priorities — an apt device, a reasonable data plan and capacity building for usage. In addition, safety nets are needed against the spate of cybercrimes and frauds.

Nobody, however, should be deprived of their rights or be discriminated against just because they happen to be on the wrong side of the digital divide until we achieve universal, ubiquitous and meaningful connectivity.

Incidentally, as per the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961, all the policy matters for the Internet — including those for E-Governance and E-Commerce vest with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) except for the ISP licensing that continues to be with the telecom department.

According to the latest TRAI data, out of the thousand-odd active ISPs, just the three leading integrated telecom operators together account for 95 per cent of broadband subscriptions. Likewise, just a handful among millions of websites and apps account for the bulk of data traffic online. All the same, rather than rushing for the regulatory approach, careful and nuanced analysis must be undertaken to foster and sustain choice, competition and contestability.

Contextual awareness and the larger public interest must be undertaken to discern the signals from noise through an open, transparent multi-stakeholder consultation for an agile and accountable policy framework.

The writer is a public policy consultant and researcher