(6 March 2008 5:00 pm)

MUMBAI: BSNL is planning to roll out wireless broadband services in the next three months. The company is targeting a total of seven million broadband subscribers by 2010, out of which two million will be wireless.

The aim is to cover 25,000 villages through wireless broadband. The state-owned company will take the franchise route for this.

BSNL director of planning and new services Gopal Das was one of the speakers at the Sixth International Conference on Comunications Convergence which kicked off today. The two-day event is organised by Indian Merchants' Chamber (IMC).

Das notes that with the advent of convergence, telecom companies are positioning themselves as being one-stop shops. Besides telephony, they also provide net and broadband.

Das says that BSNL has invested a lot in building next generation networks over IP. The aim is to offer premium services.

The company plans to offer mobile TV and radio on mobile later this year. On wired broadband it offers speed upto 2mbps on ADSL2+ technology. The aim is to add three million wire broadband subscribers over the next couple of years.
It claims to already have in the region of 1.6 million subscribers.

BSNL has already rolled out its IPTV service in three cities of Pune, Bangalore and Delhi. He says that business is picking up and the plan is to cover more cities during the course of the year.

Das also says that one should not look at communications and technology industries as being completely separate from the media and entertainment industries at a time when the two are converging. He believes that in 2020 these two combined will contribute 25 per cent to the economy. In 2047 which
is the centenary of India’s Independence, it is possible that the knowledge economy will contribute 50 per cent.

Jayantrao Patil, minister for finance and planning, government of Maharashtra, shed light on the role that communications plays in the functioning of the government and in facilitating business transactions.

Addressing the inaugural session, Patil said that the state government has planned to link 9000 villages with the state Data Centre through wireless connectivity soon.

ETH research lab chairman Vijay P Bhatkar was another guest of honour. He spoke on the increasing role that communications will play in different areas including social networking. He offered the example of the Google Phone, which the world’s most valuable media company is said to be looking to launch this year.

Bhatkar also raised the larger issue of the digital divide that exists. Illiteracy is still a problem in villages and he says that new technologies like IPTV should be used to spread literacy and also to educate students. The difference that a computer and an Internet connection make in an illiterate community is
substantial and that is something that authorities and service providers should focus on.