Airtel Broadband and Telephone Services (Airtel B &TS) is one of the largest private broadband and telephone service providers in the country. The company believes that the low pricing of broadband has helped to increase penetration in the country. In an interaction with Radhika Nallayam of CIOL, Airtel Spokesperson talks about the drivers for broadband in India and also envisions a bright future ahead for broadband.

CIOL: What are the drives behind the growing need for broadband in India?

The Indian market is indeed growing very fast, though the month on month market growth in the last six months has seen a plateauing. The key reasons for this are also in the drivers for broadband adoption in India, which are

· Access device availability i.e., PC penetration.
· Local language content i.e. compelling content, which requires high-speed access to drive up the adoption of broadband.
· Entry level pricing on broadband where we look at making available broadband on dial-up rates.
· Ubiquitous access to broadband where we see unbundling of the local loop and WiMax gaining currency.

Until now, what we have witnessed in the market is the adoption of broadband being driven by the early adopters. Of all the above drivers, the one really addressed is the low pricing of broadband itself, with a customer having to pay as low as Rs.250 a month to get 2Mbps speeds. However, the other key drivers are not yet completely in place, resulting in a temporary plateauing of the market month on month growth. The current holiday season and the spurt in PC sales will be the acid test for the future of broadband for the first quarter of the financial year 07-08.