Internet

Internet and telephony major Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) is planning to take on United States Trade Representative (USTR) on allegations that VSNL is creating artificial shortages of bandwidth in and out of India.

USTR, which deals with trade and anti-competitive practices, has accused VSNL of creating bandwidth crisis. In its ‘Telecommunications Trade Agreements’ report, the organisation has also alleged that VSNL was responsible for bottlenecking of bandwidth, in turn, preventing US operators from serving Indian customers.

Tatas-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited is planning to lay an undersea cable between India and Europe, covering about 10,000 km, at an investment of over $300 million (about Rs 1,350 crore).
When contacted, senior VSNL officials confirmed the plan and said that the company was expecting to have enough demand for bandwidth by 2008 and keeping this in mind VSNL has undertaken the major project.

Story: The Hindu.

India's mobile music industry will apparently soon overtake its conventional counterpart, with projected sales for 2006 set at INR 7.2 billion.

Airtel has a subscriber base of 20m, out of which 6m use mobile music services. During the last financial year, the company registered about 50m downloads. This year, music downloads are slated to go up as the company adds more subscribers.

For instance almost all operators have launched an "Easy Music" service that allows subscribers to walk into a mobile phone outlet, choose their favorite music from a huge catalogue of music in as many as 20 languages and download onto their mobile phones -- or even other digital devices like iPod -- for as little as 15 cents each for a Hindi song or 30 cents for an international song.

ET has an interesting article overviewing the impact of various technology initiatives in rural India including the following gem:

Started under the governement's Grameen Sanchar Sevak scheme, a postman totes mobile phone along with letters. Postmen carry WLL (wireless in local loop) phones while delivering mail. Residents can use the phone to make calls, both local and STD for certian charge. The service is targeted at people who do not own a telephone.

The ISPAI has refuted claims by the IMI that ISPs facilitate music piracy on the Internet.

"We reiterate that an ISP who merely provides such access is not in any way violating the provisions of the Copyright Act or the IT Act 2000," the ISPAI President, Mr Sanjay Dwivedi, said in the letter.