Unregulated VoIP gone but broadband to grow in India

After the recent clampdown on the unregistered use of VoIP by companies in India, there was some good news to follow. Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communications and IT has promised that 2007 will be the year of broadband in India. He also promised to reduce the disparity between the number of broadband connections and PC penetration in India.

6 million phone connections are added every month but only 5.5 million new PCs are sold every year. Such disparity is bound to hurt the overall growth of the IT sector. Mr. Maran has promised a new broadband policy which will sweep India onto the Information Superhighway.

India has positioned itself as a world-leader for outsourcing business solutions, specifically customer services and software development.  Hindering access to cheap telephony, whether that may be via traditional PSTN or VoIP does not make India as attractive to foreign investors who rely on the ability to keep costs down.

However, one must keep in mind the fact that India has only had an open liberalized market for about 15 years.  Voice over IP technology is viewed in many quarters as a disruptive technology that the incumbent telcos won’t be able to compete against, so it will take a shift in political opinion to make VoIP open and accessible to all in India in the future.