Netting a tide

Internet is a technology whose

main character is the pace at which the technological changes take place. The

civil society, particularly policy makers and government administrators, have

certainly lagged behind in lapping up the best Net technology has to offer, as

quickly as the offerings. This is the case the world over and India is no

exception to this.

The latest evidence of the

society's ability to cope up with ‘Net speed’ is an expert committee's

recommendations on allowing Internet based telephone services in the country.

The committee has given the go ahead, but would like it to be operational only

from April next. This is yet another clear case of the government, and its

operational units, keeping its interest above that of the people and

particularly consumers.

Because, the decision to

postpone the impending arrival of a new and highly consumer-oriented technology,

is to protect the monopoly profits of two leading government-owned telecom

service providers. They are the overseas telecom giant, VSNL and the domestic

major, BSNL. The reasoning for the delayed introduction is that the overseas

telecom services are expected to be thrown open to private players only from

next April. So the Net telephony should also wait till then. This would

certainly allow these monopolies to continue their profit-making services at the

cost of consumers who do not have a choice now.

However, technology has

triumphed over the whims and fancies of technocrats anyway. Even international

calls are coming in to the country in a big way through the Net and government

cannot block it with existing technologies. What it can, however, do is to

continue the ban and ensure that ISPs adhere to it on outgoing calls. Similar

attempts by China failed in 1998 and it has been allowed in that country since

1999.

The government should take a

re-look at the expert committee's report. Net telephony should be allowed right

away because the declining revenues to the government's telecom majors would not

be significant. The quality of Net-based voice telephone services is nowhere

near the clarity offered by normal voice-based service providers. The Net has

anyway emerged as a major communication medium and the tech-savvy companies and

individuals are already using the chat mode effectively to keep their

communication costs down.

For businesses and individuals,

Net telephony, in the current technological avatar, will not be a great draw. So

diversion of revenue will not be significant. On the other hand, incoming

Net-based calls are certainly cutting into to the revenues, through the

reduction in overseas voice calls, which the government cannot do much about. It

is better to allow a promising technology as early as possible as the

alternative of banning it is not technologically feasible anyway. At least, the

nation can claim a moral high ground on accepting people friendly technology as

fast as anyone else in the world.