India poised for bandwidth boom: Kalam

Chennai, Feb 23 (UNI) India is well poised for bandwidth boom and ready to become the most bandwidth-competitive country in the world, President A P J Abdul Kalam said today.

Inaugurating the international conference on signal processing, communications and networking at the Madras Institute of Technology here, Dr Kalam said India had achieved the distinction of being a country with fast growing broadband market in the world during 2006.

''Many experts believe that India is now ready to become the most bandwidth competitive country in the world. Thanks to the steps taken by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), price of bandwidth is continuously falling,'' he said.

It may be true that current bandwidth prices in India were as much as five times higher than on some international routes. ''But the trend is such that the bandwidth prices could drop significantly in the near future,'' the President hoped.

Stating that bandwidth growth had been phenomenal in the country, Dr Kalam said the total installed bandwidth capacity was in the range of 19-20 Tb and lit-up capacity was in the range of 500-700 Gb.

''That means there is a significant scope to optimally utilise the available infrastructure. The Government's revised policy on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) now allows up to 74 per cent foreign ownership in telecommunication sector. It opens up the whole world to contribute and participate in India's growing economy.

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