On setting up a private ISP in India
Catching up on Abhishek Puri’s Broadband Blog, found this post referencing an old (1998) paper on setting up private ISPs in India.
Also another post regarding planned rate reductions on leased lines.
One of the long term challenges for the Kuppam i-Community program I’m working with is to make their broadband services economically sustainable, even though it serves a low-income, rural commmunity in India. While the program is making good use of wireless technology to bring down the costs of intra-regional connectivity, the cost of external internet connectivity has remained high, and has been dominated by leased line expense.
It remains to be seen whether the Kuppam program will be able to find a service provider to partner with in the region or whether it will need to form an ISP-like entity to provision and operate the network on behalf of the other community programs that are making use of the service. There have been numerous statements of intent by operators planning to provide wider access to broadband network service in Andhra Pradesh, although so far none are actually available.
Tags: india, business, rural development
