Why Modi's Digital India will switch off on low internet speed

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his government's Digital India programme on July 1 and kicked off the Digital India Week - promoted heavily on Twitter with #DigitalIndiaWeek - in a bid to finally push India into the 21st century.

Like most government initiatives, the Digital India plan too is heavy on hype and low on substance. The overall idea is to make "India prepare for the knowledge future" and come up "transformative" programmes. But what do these big words mean? Your guess is as good as mine. The hashtags look good on Twitter, but in the real world, you need more than the buzzwords.

The reality is that India, despite its supposed IT superpower tag, still lives in the industrial age, and barely so. When it comes to "digital India", the basic problem that the country faces, and will face in greater measure in the coming years, is connectivity. Just yesterday, Akamai came up with its report on state of the internet in various countries. The net speed in India is the second lowest among all Asian countries. If you bring European countries into the picture, the state of the internet in India can aptly be termed pathetic. It is not only slow, but also extremely expensive.

The situation is so bad that even government bodies have started talking about it in stark terms. "As of September 2014, India has a 15 per cent internet user penetration and is ranked 142nd, way below some of its neighbouring countries like Bhutan and Sri Lanka," a TRAI report recently noted.

The most regrettable fact about the state of internet in India is that it is fixable. The problems can be mitigated, the infrastructure can be improved, internet connectivity can reach more places, and the quality of service can be better. And that doesn't require too much effort. All it requires is some intent to make a change.

At a time when the rest of the world defines minimum broadband speed as above 2mbps - in the US, it is 25mbps- our government (read TRAI) - still defines it as 512kbps, which is 50 times slower than the minimum speed in the US. Simply raising the speed and forcing telecom operators to meet it will improve the service manifold.

Then there is the curious case of telecom operators erring, undeterred. In most countries across the world, practices like fair use policy, which telecom providers use to throttle the internet speed on some imagined pretext, are not allowed by regulators. In fact, recently, the FCC in the US fined AT&T, a service provider, $100 million for using such tactics. But in India, telecom operators not only offer expensive and slow internet, but also throttle speed at will so that they can sell top ups. Yet, the government has refused to take note.

Now comes the question of reach. Most places in India are still serviced by MTNL and BSNL. Even as the two service providers seem to have pulled back - mysteriously so - from pushing for better internet connectivity in India, private players have shown no initiative to step up. Instead, they are busy milking individual customers by offering them bare minimum services, while dolling out quality but exorbitantly priced plans to corporate customers.

What is worse is that even 3G and 4G connectivity, which were supposed to end India's speed woes, have not improved the scene. The telecom infrastructure is so bad that nowadays getting a reliable 3G service that works consistently at a speed of 1mbps or above (which is also 20 times less than the theoretical speed) is impossible even in metros like Delhi. The 4G services, meanwhile, continue to be part of some dream that will come true some day. An even if it does, there is a feeling that it will end up working like the frustratingly slow 3G because, you guessed it right, the telecom infrastructure is bad.

Who is responsible for the mess?

TRAI and the government. Yes, telecom operators are also responsible. But they are doing things that they are allowed to. If the regulator allows Airtel, Vodafone and others to milk customers, they will do so.

Without the basic infrastructure there is no hope for Digital India. All those e-learning programmes, e-government services, tele-medicine plans, and audio-video education delivery require good internet connectivity. Yet, the government shows no urgency in solving the real problem, which can end with a little insight and earnest efforts. Instead, it continues to sell buzzwords.