India ISP News in Brief

• Government Takes Windfall Dividend From ILEC
• Introducing India's ISP Association
• Microsoft Launches .Net Tech Center In Bangalore
• More Cellular Subscribers, More SMS

by Uday Lal Pai of asia.internet.com [December 24, 2001]

Government Takes Windfall Dividend From ILEC
Employees of India's state-run ILEC, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL), as well as its major shareholder, the government, are laughing all the way to the bank after it announced an eye-popping dividend of 750 percent.

India's privatization minister Aurn Shourie had said last month that VSNL was sitting on a cash pile worth US$1 billion, and that the Government planned to distribute it to shareholders before privatization.

The Government, which holds a 52.97 percent stake in VSNL, plans to lower its stake to 26 percent by selling off 25 percent—along with management control—to a strategic partner, and another 1.97 percent to VSNL employees.

On average, VSNL employees were allotted 200 shares by the Government when the telco was listed on the stock exchanges. These 200 shares multiplied to 600 when the company allotted a generous bonus in the ratio of two shares for each one already held. Thus, the total dividend income for an average shareholder employee of VSNL would amount to US$1,600 this year.

Meanwhile, VSNL has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with MCI WorldCom to continue their relationship, including the provision of mutual support in data and voice services in the U.S. and Indian markets.

This MoU becomes important with the approach of April 1, 2002, the date when international long distance services in India will be deregulated.

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Introducing India's ISP Association
The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) has decided to engage an external rating agency or foreign consultant to enforce its code of conduct.

The external agency would present certificates to ISPs that conform to the code, according to Amitabh Singhal, ISPAI's secretary. The agency would also be responsible for laying down processes, performing audits, and checking irregularities, he added.

Under the code, which is voluntary, ISPs are to follow a set of practices, which make them accountable to the law, the public, their profession, and their customers. ISPs are also to follow certain basic principles such as being "technology neutral", "fair to all concerned," "protect users' data," and have "accountability towards content providers."

Other requirements under the code include:

• Service providers should cooperate with law enforcement agencies acting within the lawy of India.
  
  
• ISPs should not knowingly permit any user or fellow member to engage in any illegal activity.
  
  
• ISPs should ensure that their services and promotional material do not contain anything that may incite violence, cruelty, or hatred on the basis of sexual discrimination, caste, creed, or religion.
  
  
• Members of ISPAI should ensure that minors do not register themselves for Internet services, except with the explicit permission of their parents.

But even as the code of conduct has brought ethical issues under its purview, it still fails to tackle sensitive issues such as peering, inter-connection problems, predatory pricing, and monopolistic practices.

ISPAI, instead, requires that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) take a lead role in sorting out these issues. "As an association, we cannot delve deep into business practices adopted by ISPs and can only tackle problems at a macro level. For sensitive issues, such as pricing, we expect TRAI to intervene," Singhal said.

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Microsoft Launches .Net Tech Center in Bangalore
In a bid to promote its .NET strategy, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. has opened a .NET technology center in the city of Bangalore—known as India's equivalent of Silicon Valley.

According to Michael Rawding, Microsoft president for Asia, the new Center will be the software giant's fourth XML center in Asia; the other three are in Singapore, Malaysia, and Beijing.

Microsoft will initially pump US$4.2 million into the Bangalore Center. The Supercomputing Education and Research Center of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore will help provide training and education, while Unisys and EMC will lend infrastructure support for the initiative.

Officials said the Center will aim to complete 50 .NET projects by the end of next year, and train more than 1,000 IT professionals on the .NET architecture.

Karnataka chief minister S. M. Krishna, who inaugurated the opening of the Bangalore Center, told members of the media that the Karnataka Government plans to train the judiciary and the police force to combat software piracy.

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More Cellular Subscribers, More SMS
As the cellular subscriber base in India exceeds the five million mark, competition in the country's mobile market is heating up. Last week saw AirTel, the cellular brand of Bharti Mobinet Limited, launch SMS services in Tamil and other vernacular languages. This week, BPL Mobile Cellular announced its SMS in Tamil and Malayalam.

The ability to send SMS in regional languages is available only to owners of select Nokia handsets, which are enabled with picture-messaging technology. "The service is provided with the company's indigenously developed software, which access pre-configured messages in vernacular languages stored as images from the server. All a subscriber has to do is type the relevant code number for sending a message from the pre-configured set," Ghosh said.

Meanwhile, in a major IT-related initiative in the financial sector, an indigenously built Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS) was launched recently in India to provide a secure and cost-effective platform for communications within and between banks, covering all customer and government transactions.

R. B. Burman, executive director of the Reserve Bank of India, formally launched the project developed by the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology, in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services.

Any financial transaction between the banks, which had previously taken up to three weeks to process, would now be completed within a few minutes as SFMS provides a real-time interface in a secured environment armed with smart card-based user access, and standard encryption and authentication services.

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