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India to have 7.5 million Net connections by 2003

Internet connections in India will cross the 7.5 million mark in three years, according to Amitabh Singhal, secretary of the Internet Service Providers' Association of India.

Participating in the two-day conference entitled 'VSAT and Internet India 2000' in New Delhi, he said the Internet subscriber base has just crossed the one million mark. There are about 280 Internet Service Provider licensees and 65 of them are already operational, he said.

Sanjeev Nikore, president of VSAT Service Providers' Association, said VSATs or very small aperture terminals have been silently bringing a mini revolution into the country by providing reliable data connectivity to the widespread and remotely located communication-hungry establishments of practically all business sectors.

VSATs are playing a pivotal and complimentary role in infrastructure building alongside optical fibre, wireless and other means, he said.

The two-day conference,which began today, would try to remove infrastructure barriers in communications and discuss the feasibility of VSATs in the context of the Indian market.

Top level policy-makers, users and representatives of the service industry are participating in the conference to assess the benefits to the telecom and Internet sectors.

The focus is on the latest VSAT technologies. VSATs can provide one single network to all sites including places where land lines are not available. Network costs are low as transmission costs are not distance dependent like terrestrial networks.

An exhibition has also been organised displaying products from all top players in the field. Officially sponsored by the Department of Space, the exhibition has been organised by Exhibitions India.

UNI

Business