India’s Broadband users to hit 600 million by 2020

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) released a statement recently, saying that the country is targeting broadband users to hit the 600 million mark by the year 2020. Currently there are 20 million users in the country. With the proposed expansion plan, the entire length and breadth of the country is expected to be covered.

R Chandrasekhar, who is the chairman of the telecom commission as well as the secretary of the department of information security in the country, said that the country is investing Rs. 20,000 crore in order to strengthen its broadband network. Chandrasekhar was addressing the CII-Media Entertainment Summit 2012, which was titled India-The big picture.

The telecom commissions chairman went on to say that the government is looking to ride the phenomenal growth of digitalization in Tier III and Tier IV cities, which would help in covering all of India’s digital landscape.

Even though there is a lot to look forward to in India’s digital space, Chandrasekhar pointed out that there are many grey areas that need to be looked at with some concern. These areas include protection of IPR and copyrights, piracy, carriage fee and other such issues. Providing digital equipment to the common man at an affordable price is another hurdle that will need to be cleared, if India is to meet its ambitious goals of countrywide broadband coverage.