......" only three people out of 1,000 in India have access to PCs, according
to India's NASSCOM. The Indian government has plans to change that by
converting its network of 600,000 public telephones into multimedia tele-info
centers with access to the Internet. In addition, local governments are developing
a variety of projects with international telecommunications firms to help
accelerate this process. Internet access might also be provided through cable TV
rather than PCs. India has 37 million cable TV connections.
Another fact that sharply defines the environment in India is that almost half of
the country's population of a billion is illiterate and that the government
bureaucrats, by several accounts, move slowly and have little understanding of
the world of information technology. In addition, the government itself operates
telecommunications companies that until recently were monopolies; the result is a
bizarre potpourri of laws, such as the current prohibition of voice-over-IP
technology in India. On a more fundamental level, India is still a country whose
cities suffer power outages on a daily basis. On the eve of the millennium, for
example, large chunks of Delhi, the nation's capital, suffered from power outages
for five hours.".................reaction? |
