The
media and Information Technology (IT) scenario has undergone a radical
change in the recent past in India as it has happened elsewhere in the
world. The change is both quantitative as well as qualitative. It is
also observed that the gap between invention of new technology in the
Western world and its use in India is also reducing day by day. Earlier
technologies took comparatively longer time to develop roots in the
country. But now days, soon after a new technology is developed anywhere
in the world, it starts getting used in India too.
The change in the media or IT scenario is due to several factors:
Take any technology, whether it is electronic, print or information technologies, the growth has been very rapid in the last decade and a half. It will be seen in later part of the article how the individual technologies have grown during this period. The growth also contributes to expansion of the reach as well as access. It is also found that the growth is not necessarily restricted only to urban areas as it used to happen in the past. It spreads to smaller towns and rural areas also in reasonable time. Apart from the rapid growth, the change is also facilitated largely due to the increased user friendliness of the technology. For example, today's computers are much more user friendly than they were. The hardware is easily available and manageable in terms of size and the software is easy to learn.
The qualitative change also comes about due to the combination of different technologies. For example, there is a unique fusion of the information technology of computer, television, audio and even print medium as can be seen in the form of the Internet. One can read the ‘printed’ newspaper in an electronic form on the net. Television and radio are accessible through the Internet. The government has been creating a more facilitative regulatory regime. The emphasis is now on encouraging expansion and reducing the obstacles that come in the way. Some of the rules and regulations have been changing fast. In the earlier days, the change in the rules used to be very slow and tedious, but over the years the situation is improving. The socio-political atmosphere is more open and this greatly supports both the changes in rules and regulations as well as efficient implementation of the policies. The whole growth process has obviously become possible because the technologies have become more affordable and also because the society has started understanding the importance of new communication technologies.
The speed and type of changes have varied from technology to technology. For the purpose of analysis, the article looks at the following main categories:
It is seen that some of the characteristics traditionally associated with a particular medium are undergoing changes. The distinctions between different media are getting slowly blurred. It is no longer possible to say that a medium is strictly a print medium. For example, one can read the newspapers and magazines from anywhere in the world through the Internet. Obviously these newspapers and magazines are no longer ‘print media’. It also used to be believed that there is a certain amount of permanency or lack of permanency of the output of a medium. For example, it was believed that the radio and television programmes are non-permanent — as compared to the print medium - because once they are transmitted, it is not possible to have a re-look at them. However, the invention and ease of recording has changed the scenario. It is possible to record any television programme at any time and watch it one's convenience. Similarly, the print medium considered being more permanent than the ‘ethereal’ TV or radio services. However, if the newspaper is only on the Internet, it can no longer have that characteristic. Of course, it is always possible to download and take a hard copy and this again make it into a print or permanent medium. The biggest change, however, has come through the marriage of different technologies. The greatest contribution has come from the personal computer. Through a huge system of satellite communication, cable communication, fiber optics, telephone lines, the broadcast media, the print media, the Internet and the computer combined together have broken all the traditional boundaries between different media. The day probably is not far when the medium like television will become obsolete because most of its functions would have been taken over by the computer technology in the form of the Internet.
A. BROADCAST MEDIA
All India Radio
Radio has a long history in India. The first radio broadcast was started in June 1923 as an amateur activity by the radio club. The Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) was started on July 23, 1927. The IBC, however, had a short life. It went into liquidation on March 1, 1930. A month later on April 1, 1930, the Indian State Broadcasting Service under Department of Industries and Labour commenced on an experimental basis. The Department of Controller for Broadcasts was constituted in March 1935.
The experimental broadcasts saw a smooth transition into a regular service. The first news bulletin was broadcast on January 19, 1936. In June 1936, the Indian State Broadcasting Service became All India Radio. Central News Organisation came into existence in 1937 and in the same year All India Radio was shifted to the Department of Communication. The external services were started in 1939 and in 1941 All India Radio came under the Department of Information and Broadcasting. In 1946, All India Radio was brought under Department of Information and Arts and soon thereafter the department was called the Department of Information and Broadcasting.
In 1947 India attained independence from the British rule. The country was divided and consequently six radio stations remained with India and three went to Pakistan. The number of radio stations has gone up from a mere six in 1947 to 196 in 1998 that is a very significant growth. At the time of Independence there were approximately 2,75,000 radio sets in the country that went to more than 111 Million in 1995. At the present time the medium wave transmission covers 97 per cent of the population and nearly 90 per cent of the area.
Doordarshan
Doordarshan in 1998 had a huge network of 1034 terrestrial transmitters, several terrestrial and satellite channels; 46-programme producing centres and output of about 4000 hours of programming per week. There are over 65 million television households with estimated viewers exceeding 400 million. But this is a far cry from a very modest beginning made by Doordarshan way back in 1959. It started as an experimental station from Delhi. Only in 1965 the daily service including a news bulletin was started. Another major event to take place on the Indian television scenario was the conduct of Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) in 1975-76. This experiment conducted by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) using the American ATS-6 Satellite has been acclaimed as one of the biggest successful socio-technical communication experiment in the world. The experiment was conducted in 2400 remote villages located in six different states of the country. It used satellite based television programmes to disseminated development support communication in areas like health, agriculture, education, social issues, general awareness etc. The needs of development and education were met through the benefits of modern technology. Remarkable improvement was in the knowledge levels of different subjects. Maximum was found amongst the less educated, women and more backward sections of the villages. This was also the precursor to the INSAT satellite system of today, which has contributed enormously to the exponential growth of television in the last two decades.
Operationalisation of INSAT satellite system of ISRO in 1982 enabled the massive expansion of Doordarshan in different parts of India. This enabled transmission of countrywide transmission of programmes including live programmes of common interest to different parts of the country. This era also marked the beginning of the colour transmission. The impetus for expansion was received from the fact that the 1982 Asian Games where held in New Delhi. Doordarshan today uses INSAT-2 series of satellites.
Another major development has been in the field of programmes received from a large number of foreign satellites. There are two main types of programmes: (1) English language channels which are predominantly made for a global especially the western societies; (2) Indian language channels which transmit programmes keeping in mind the Indian audiences and catering to different language groups. The reception and distribution of these programmes have contributed greatly to making the country’s television a truly global phenomenon. It is estimated that there are over 15 Million television households with satellite connectivity. A typical subscriber receives about 35 channels. A list of the major channels is given below:
Foreign Satellite Channels
1. English Language Channels
2. Indian Language Channels
Cinema
India is the leader in the number of film productions. It produces the highest number of films in the world every year. India produces on an average about 800 feature films per year. In 1996 there were 12,867 Cinema halls with a seating capacity of 7.3 per 1000 population. The films are produced in many languages by a large number of individual producers and production houses. Indian cinema has yielded about 28,000 feature films and thousands of documentary short films so far. The first exposure to motion pictures, which India received, was in 1896, when the Lumiere Brothers' 'Cinematographe' unveiled six soundless short films in Mumbai (called Bombay). On May 3, 1913 at the Coronation Cinema, Bombay, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, was responsible for the production of India's first fully indigenous silent feature film 'Raja Harishchandra' that heralded the birth of the Indian film industry. The first Indian talkie 'Alam Ara' produced by the Imperial Film Company and directed by Ardeshir Irani was released in 1931. The thirties are recognised as the decade of social protest in the history of Indian cinema. The film industry is the major entertainment industry. It also provides a very substantial support to the television channels. A large number of programmes are feature films based - songs, dances, and a good deal of prime time is taken up by full-length feature films.
B. PRINT MEDIA
Newspaper/Magazines
The newspaper industry has traditionally functioned as a free press in India. The freedom of expression and independence for print media has been ensured in the Indian constitution and the newspapers zealously guard this independence. It is of significance to note that there is no pre-censorship for newspapers. However, there are certain laws of the land, which apply to the newspaper industry. There is Press Council with quasi-judiciary powers.
The Gujarati Daily Bombay Samachar, started in 1822 AD, is the oldest existing newspaper in Asia. Apart from English and 18 principal languages enumerated in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, newspapers are published in 81 other languages, mostly Indian languages and a few foreign languages. The total number of newspapers and periodicals as of December 1995 was 37,254. The total number of Daily Newspapers in India is 4,236.
C. TELECOMMUNICATIONS
The following technologies are included under telecommunications.
As can be seen from this list, it is a mix of some old technologies like telephone and some very recent services like pagers and cellular phones that were introduced in India in 1996. There is an amalgamation of some of the technologies and this creates a totally qualitatively different impact. For example, Internet is a combination of telephone and personal computers.
Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell of the USA invented the perfected version of the Telephone in 1876. Telephones in India are under the purview of Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in the Ministry of Communications. It is the sole agency responsible for telephone network in the country. When the current phase of liberalisation began in 1991, one of the first infrastructural fields to be benefited was that of the telephones. A national telecom policy came into being which visualised telephones on demand — it can easily take 3 to 5 years to get a telephone connection in India - and an increase in telephone density to 3 per 100 persons as against 1 per 100. It was realised that the Department of Telecommunications did not have the resources to meet the objective of 16 Million telephone lines. One of the solutions was to encourage privatisation of the telecom sector. There were, however, several teething problems. While the tender for mobile and paging receivers in the four metropolitan cities managed to get through to the implementation stage without too many major hurdles, the main part of privatisation, in terms of basic services and cellular services beyond the four metro cities ran in to trouble. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) envisaged independent of DoT was not in place, which left DoT to set up the rules for the operators, though it was itself competing with the private operators. Many of these hurdles have been overcome and there is a rapid growth of the cellular phone and pager services by private companies in several cities. The value-added services have also been on the increase.
It is estimated that there are approximately 12 Million telephone connections in the country. Out of this, about 3 Million are public telephones. The ratio of telephone per thousand populations works to about 12.50. There are plans for providing at least one telephone in each village numbering over 600,000. The idea is really to increase the penetration at a community level that is telephone at the village level accessible to all rather than attempting to provide individual connectivity. This would be done through state intervention rather than leaving it to the market forces. This one telephone will be like a public telephone to be shared by the whole village. Of course those who can afford will be able to have their personal phones.
Pagers/Cellular
It is estimated that there are about 700,000 pager subscribers. The paging services are completely private though they have to use the government’s telephone lines. There are eight private cell phone companies and ten pager companies. According to the Global Wireless, November-December 1998 Vol.1 No.6, as on June 1, 1998 there were 9,28,418 cellular subscribers in the four metros and 15 telecom circles. By the time cellular companies complete three years of operations towards the end of 1998, the country is expected to have one million subscribers. The Paging subscriber status in India is 6,96,800 as of April 1, 1998.
The Indian Government has realised that satellite enabled mass mobile service is the next development in telecommunications that will benefit the user. Inmarsat and DoT are conducting a pilot project for satellite-based telephones in remote areas of the country. Global, Mobile and Personal Services (GMPS) will define telecoms in the 21st century. Cell phone users want to use their phones wherever they go; operators respond by competing to add more territory to their services. Roaming services allow cellular customers to make calls outside their home network. In Feb. '98 the Department of Telecommunications permitted cellular operators to offer their subscribers automatic national and international roaming facility. This facility will allow subscribers to make and receive calls on a single number even when they are not in their home location register. There are very few takers for the roaming facilities in radio paging.
Computers
One of the most visible impacts in the recent times is that of the personal computers. It started making an appearance in offices and homes about a decade ago. However, in the beginning the number was very small because of the high costs and less of user-friendliness of the earlier hardware and less developed infrastructure. But over the years the prices have come down drastically and simultaneously the PC literacy has increased. According to 1996 estimates there were over 1.4 Million PCs. This comes to 0.51 units per 1000 population. However, according to the study carried out by Indian Market Research Bureau, PC penetration per 1000 persons has gone upto 1.8 and by the end of 1998 it is expected to rise to 2.3. The growth has been very fast since then and the curve clearly indicates a very rapid growth. A very widespread efficient infrastructure has developed. A large pool of manpower and industrial base —for hardware and software- has developed assuring further rapid growth.
Internet
It is estimated that there are about 100,000 Internet subscribers as of now. There were two major Internet service providers in India: 1. VSNL: 45,000 and 2. ERNET: 50,000. Several private service providers have entered the market and the subscribers are growing at a very fast rate. Global interest in the Internet has had its impact in India as well. Originally, about 50,000 users of the network, exclusive to educational and research institutions, were the only ones connected. VSNL, which controls all international telecommunications in India, started offering internal connections to private individuals and companies in 1995. The initial response was modest as the tariff was high and only four cities were connected. VSNL decreased the tariff subsequently and added more cities to the network and the number of connections has gone upto 45,000. However, even with connections as few as these, the network is badly clogged because the number telephone lines that VSNL has had access to locally, is limited.
The change in the media or IT scenario is due to several factors:
- Rapid growth of technology, and increased reach and access
- Technological developments and combination of different technologies
- Improved economics of technology
- Liberalisation of rules and regulations about entry and adoption in the country, and
- Facilitative socio-political regime
Take any technology, whether it is electronic, print or information technologies, the growth has been very rapid in the last decade and a half. It will be seen in later part of the article how the individual technologies have grown during this period. The growth also contributes to expansion of the reach as well as access. It is also found that the growth is not necessarily restricted only to urban areas as it used to happen in the past. It spreads to smaller towns and rural areas also in reasonable time. Apart from the rapid growth, the change is also facilitated largely due to the increased user friendliness of the technology. For example, today's computers are much more user friendly than they were. The hardware is easily available and manageable in terms of size and the software is easy to learn.
The qualitative change also comes about due to the combination of different technologies. For example, there is a unique fusion of the information technology of computer, television, audio and even print medium as can be seen in the form of the Internet. One can read the ‘printed’ newspaper in an electronic form on the net. Television and radio are accessible through the Internet. The government has been creating a more facilitative regulatory regime. The emphasis is now on encouraging expansion and reducing the obstacles that come in the way. Some of the rules and regulations have been changing fast. In the earlier days, the change in the rules used to be very slow and tedious, but over the years the situation is improving. The socio-political atmosphere is more open and this greatly supports both the changes in rules and regulations as well as efficient implementation of the policies. The whole growth process has obviously become possible because the technologies have become more affordable and also because the society has started understanding the importance of new communication technologies.
The speed and type of changes have varied from technology to technology. For the purpose of analysis, the article looks at the following main categories:
- The Broadcast Media: This will include radio, television and related media;
- The Print Media; and
- Telecommunications: This will include telephones, pagers, cellars, computers and the Internet.
It is seen that some of the characteristics traditionally associated with a particular medium are undergoing changes. The distinctions between different media are getting slowly blurred. It is no longer possible to say that a medium is strictly a print medium. For example, one can read the newspapers and magazines from anywhere in the world through the Internet. Obviously these newspapers and magazines are no longer ‘print media’. It also used to be believed that there is a certain amount of permanency or lack of permanency of the output of a medium. For example, it was believed that the radio and television programmes are non-permanent — as compared to the print medium - because once they are transmitted, it is not possible to have a re-look at them. However, the invention and ease of recording has changed the scenario. It is possible to record any television programme at any time and watch it one's convenience. Similarly, the print medium considered being more permanent than the ‘ethereal’ TV or radio services. However, if the newspaper is only on the Internet, it can no longer have that characteristic. Of course, it is always possible to download and take a hard copy and this again make it into a print or permanent medium. The biggest change, however, has come through the marriage of different technologies. The greatest contribution has come from the personal computer. Through a huge system of satellite communication, cable communication, fiber optics, telephone lines, the broadcast media, the print media, the Internet and the computer combined together have broken all the traditional boundaries between different media. The day probably is not far when the medium like television will become obsolete because most of its functions would have been taken over by the computer technology in the form of the Internet.
A. BROADCAST MEDIA
Radio has a long history in India. The first radio broadcast was started in June 1923 as an amateur activity by the radio club. The Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) was started on July 23, 1927. The IBC, however, had a short life. It went into liquidation on March 1, 1930. A month later on April 1, 1930, the Indian State Broadcasting Service under Department of Industries and Labour commenced on an experimental basis. The Department of Controller for Broadcasts was constituted in March 1935.
The experimental broadcasts saw a smooth transition into a regular service. The first news bulletin was broadcast on January 19, 1936. In June 1936, the Indian State Broadcasting Service became All India Radio. Central News Organisation came into existence in 1937 and in the same year All India Radio was shifted to the Department of Communication. The external services were started in 1939 and in 1941 All India Radio came under the Department of Information and Broadcasting. In 1946, All India Radio was brought under Department of Information and Arts and soon thereafter the department was called the Department of Information and Broadcasting.
In 1947 India attained independence from the British rule. The country was divided and consequently six radio stations remained with India and three went to Pakistan. The number of radio stations has gone up from a mere six in 1947 to 196 in 1998 that is a very significant growth. At the time of Independence there were approximately 2,75,000 radio sets in the country that went to more than 111 Million in 1995. At the present time the medium wave transmission covers 97 per cent of the population and nearly 90 per cent of the area.
Doordarshan
Doordarshan in 1998 had a huge network of 1034 terrestrial transmitters, several terrestrial and satellite channels; 46-programme producing centres and output of about 4000 hours of programming per week. There are over 65 million television households with estimated viewers exceeding 400 million. But this is a far cry from a very modest beginning made by Doordarshan way back in 1959. It started as an experimental station from Delhi. Only in 1965 the daily service including a news bulletin was started. Another major event to take place on the Indian television scenario was the conduct of Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) in 1975-76. This experiment conducted by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) using the American ATS-6 Satellite has been acclaimed as one of the biggest successful socio-technical communication experiment in the world. The experiment was conducted in 2400 remote villages located in six different states of the country. It used satellite based television programmes to disseminated development support communication in areas like health, agriculture, education, social issues, general awareness etc. The needs of development and education were met through the benefits of modern technology. Remarkable improvement was in the knowledge levels of different subjects. Maximum was found amongst the less educated, women and more backward sections of the villages. This was also the precursor to the INSAT satellite system of today, which has contributed enormously to the exponential growth of television in the last two decades.
Operationalisation of INSAT satellite system of ISRO in 1982 enabled the massive expansion of Doordarshan in different parts of India. This enabled transmission of countrywide transmission of programmes including live programmes of common interest to different parts of the country. This era also marked the beginning of the colour transmission. The impetus for expansion was received from the fact that the 1982 Asian Games where held in New Delhi. Doordarshan today uses INSAT-2 series of satellites.
Another major development has been in the field of programmes received from a large number of foreign satellites. There are two main types of programmes: (1) English language channels which are predominantly made for a global especially the western societies; (2) Indian language channels which transmit programmes keeping in mind the Indian audiences and catering to different language groups. The reception and distribution of these programmes have contributed greatly to making the country’s television a truly global phenomenon. It is estimated that there are over 15 Million television households with satellite connectivity. A typical subscriber receives about 35 channels. A list of the major channels is given below:
Foreign Satellite Channels
1. English Language Channels
| Sr. No. | Channel Name | Description |
| 1 | AXN-Action TV | Action movies and cartoons |
| 2 | BBC World |
News and Current Affairs. With more focus on Asia
|
| 3 | Cartoon Network | Cartoon series |
| 4 | Channel [V] |
Pop music programmes. Recently, programmes of Hindi film and pop songs added
|
| 5 | CNBC-ABN | News and Current Affairs with emphasis on India and other Asian Countries |
| 6 | CNN International | News and Current Affairs |
| 7 | Discovery Channel | Science, wildlife and environment |
| 8 | ESPN | Sports |
| 9 | MTV | Music Channel |
| 10 | National Geographic | Environmental awareness |
| 11 | Star Movies | Movies and Entertainment |
| 12 | Star News | News and current affairs channel for India |
| 13 | Star Sports | Sports. Separately Hindi commentary in some cases |
| 14 | Star World | Offers variety entertainment programmes in English |
| 15 | TNT | Hollywood Feature films |
2. Indian Language Channels
| 16 | ABNi | Business and commerce programmes |
| 17 | Asianet | Malayalam language entertainment programmes |
| 18 | ATN | Hindi language programmes mostly feature film based |
| 19 | BITV | Hindi music, film based, serials, information |
| 20 | Enadu TV | Telugu language entertainment programmes |
| 21 | GEC | Tamil programmes |
| 22 | Gemini | Telugu language entertainment programmes |
| 23 | Home TV | Hindi language entertainment programmes |
| 24 | Jain TV | Hindi language entertainment programmes |
| 25 | Music Asia | Music channel with major programming in Hindi |
| 26 | NEPC TV | Entertainment |
| 27 | Raj TV | Tamil programmes |
| 28 | Sony Entertainment TV |
Hindi language entertainment/variety programmes
|
| 29 | Star Plus |
Offers variety entertainment programmes in Hindi and a few English programmes
|
| 30 | Sun Movies | Tamil language movies |
| 31 | Sun Music | Tamil Film songs based programmes |
| 32 | Sun TV |
Tamil language entertainment/information programmes, news
|
| 33 | Surya TV | Malayalam language entertainment |
| 34 | TVi | News and current affairs - in Hindi and English |
| 35 | Udaya TV | Kannada language entertainment programmes |
| 36 | Vijay TV | Tamil language entertainment programmes |
| 37 | YES | Youth Entertainment Service |
| 38 | Zee Cinema | Hindi movies |
| 39 | Zee India TV | Hindi and some other Indian languages |
| 40 | Zee TV | Hindi language entertainment programmes with some socio/political, educational and daily evening news in Hindi |
Cinema
India is the leader in the number of film productions. It produces the highest number of films in the world every year. India produces on an average about 800 feature films per year. In 1996 there were 12,867 Cinema halls with a seating capacity of 7.3 per 1000 population. The films are produced in many languages by a large number of individual producers and production houses. Indian cinema has yielded about 28,000 feature films and thousands of documentary short films so far. The first exposure to motion pictures, which India received, was in 1896, when the Lumiere Brothers' 'Cinematographe' unveiled six soundless short films in Mumbai (called Bombay). On May 3, 1913 at the Coronation Cinema, Bombay, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, was responsible for the production of India's first fully indigenous silent feature film 'Raja Harishchandra' that heralded the birth of the Indian film industry. The first Indian talkie 'Alam Ara' produced by the Imperial Film Company and directed by Ardeshir Irani was released in 1931. The thirties are recognised as the decade of social protest in the history of Indian cinema. The film industry is the major entertainment industry. It also provides a very substantial support to the television channels. A large number of programmes are feature films based - songs, dances, and a good deal of prime time is taken up by full-length feature films.
B. PRINT MEDIA
Newspaper/Magazines
The newspaper industry has traditionally functioned as a free press in India. The freedom of expression and independence for print media has been ensured in the Indian constitution and the newspapers zealously guard this independence. It is of significance to note that there is no pre-censorship for newspapers. However, there are certain laws of the land, which apply to the newspaper industry. There is Press Council with quasi-judiciary powers.
The Gujarati Daily Bombay Samachar, started in 1822 AD, is the oldest existing newspaper in Asia. Apart from English and 18 principal languages enumerated in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, newspapers are published in 81 other languages, mostly Indian languages and a few foreign languages. The total number of newspapers and periodicals as of December 1995 was 37,254. The total number of Daily Newspapers in India is 4,236.
C. TELECOMMUNICATIONS
The following technologies are included under telecommunications.
- Telephones including pagers and cellular phones
- Personal Computers
- Internet
As can be seen from this list, it is a mix of some old technologies like telephone and some very recent services like pagers and cellular phones that were introduced in India in 1996. There is an amalgamation of some of the technologies and this creates a totally qualitatively different impact. For example, Internet is a combination of telephone and personal computers.
Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell of the USA invented the perfected version of the Telephone in 1876. Telephones in India are under the purview of Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in the Ministry of Communications. It is the sole agency responsible for telephone network in the country. When the current phase of liberalisation began in 1991, one of the first infrastructural fields to be benefited was that of the telephones. A national telecom policy came into being which visualised telephones on demand — it can easily take 3 to 5 years to get a telephone connection in India - and an increase in telephone density to 3 per 100 persons as against 1 per 100. It was realised that the Department of Telecommunications did not have the resources to meet the objective of 16 Million telephone lines. One of the solutions was to encourage privatisation of the telecom sector. There were, however, several teething problems. While the tender for mobile and paging receivers in the four metropolitan cities managed to get through to the implementation stage without too many major hurdles, the main part of privatisation, in terms of basic services and cellular services beyond the four metro cities ran in to trouble. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) envisaged independent of DoT was not in place, which left DoT to set up the rules for the operators, though it was itself competing with the private operators. Many of these hurdles have been overcome and there is a rapid growth of the cellular phone and pager services by private companies in several cities. The value-added services have also been on the increase.
It is estimated that there are approximately 12 Million telephone connections in the country. Out of this, about 3 Million are public telephones. The ratio of telephone per thousand populations works to about 12.50. There are plans for providing at least one telephone in each village numbering over 600,000. The idea is really to increase the penetration at a community level that is telephone at the village level accessible to all rather than attempting to provide individual connectivity. This would be done through state intervention rather than leaving it to the market forces. This one telephone will be like a public telephone to be shared by the whole village. Of course those who can afford will be able to have their personal phones.
Pagers/Cellular
It is estimated that there are about 700,000 pager subscribers. The paging services are completely private though they have to use the government’s telephone lines. There are eight private cell phone companies and ten pager companies. According to the Global Wireless, November-December 1998 Vol.1 No.6, as on June 1, 1998 there were 9,28,418 cellular subscribers in the four metros and 15 telecom circles. By the time cellular companies complete three years of operations towards the end of 1998, the country is expected to have one million subscribers. The Paging subscriber status in India is 6,96,800 as of April 1, 1998.
The Indian Government has realised that satellite enabled mass mobile service is the next development in telecommunications that will benefit the user. Inmarsat and DoT are conducting a pilot project for satellite-based telephones in remote areas of the country. Global, Mobile and Personal Services (GMPS) will define telecoms in the 21st century. Cell phone users want to use their phones wherever they go; operators respond by competing to add more territory to their services. Roaming services allow cellular customers to make calls outside their home network. In Feb. '98 the Department of Telecommunications permitted cellular operators to offer their subscribers automatic national and international roaming facility. This facility will allow subscribers to make and receive calls on a single number even when they are not in their home location register. There are very few takers for the roaming facilities in radio paging.
Computers
One of the most visible impacts in the recent times is that of the personal computers. It started making an appearance in offices and homes about a decade ago. However, in the beginning the number was very small because of the high costs and less of user-friendliness of the earlier hardware and less developed infrastructure. But over the years the prices have come down drastically and simultaneously the PC literacy has increased. According to 1996 estimates there were over 1.4 Million PCs. This comes to 0.51 units per 1000 population. However, according to the study carried out by Indian Market Research Bureau, PC penetration per 1000 persons has gone upto 1.8 and by the end of 1998 it is expected to rise to 2.3. The growth has been very fast since then and the curve clearly indicates a very rapid growth. A very widespread efficient infrastructure has developed. A large pool of manpower and industrial base —for hardware and software- has developed assuring further rapid growth.
Internet
It is estimated that there are about 100,000 Internet subscribers as of now. There were two major Internet service providers in India: 1. VSNL: 45,000 and 2. ERNET: 50,000. Several private service providers have entered the market and the subscribers are growing at a very fast rate. Global interest in the Internet has had its impact in India as well. Originally, about 50,000 users of the network, exclusive to educational and research institutions, were the only ones connected. VSNL, which controls all international telecommunications in India, started offering internal connections to private individuals and companies in 1995. The initial response was modest as the tariff was high and only four cities were connected. VSNL decreased the tariff subsequently and added more cities to the network and the number of connections has gone upto 45,000. However, even with connections as few as these, the network is badly clogged because the number telephone lines that VSNL has had access to locally, is limited.
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