Indian ISP History

The licence will be issued immediately on receipt of application and applicants need not submit any earnest money for taking it.
Private ISPs have to meet the technical requirments of the Internet Access Provider i.e the NSPs such as VSNL or DOT.
ISP areas grouped into three categouries namely A, B and C.
No licence fees for 5 years.
Licences to be issued from Feb 18, 1998.

November 24, 1997 : Prime Minister I K Gujral has directed the telecommunications ministry to separate the regulatory functions of the Department of Telecommunications, which will be performed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. The government has also said that the secretary has sorted out most of the pending relating to the Internet policy.

November 19, 1997 : The new Internet policy relented to the plea of the Indian Railways and the Power Grid Corporation that they be allowed to offer surplustelecommunications capacity to private ISPs. The railways and the grid people would share the lucrative Internetbackbone business with only DoT itself and the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited. But the euphoria was short-lived. Days after the policy was made public, it is now clear that insistence on providing backbone services to theISPs at 'promotional' rates has rendered absurd the big-bucks business plans of the Indian Railways and the Power GridCorporation.

November 14, 1997 : The Department of Telecommunications may ask Internet Service Providers to furnish bank guarantees of Rs 1 million; roughly equal to the annual licence fee payable from their sixth year of operation. The committee is exploring two options for working out the annual licence fee for ISPs - either impose a flat tariff or a differential rate linked to an individual ISP's customer base after the third year of operation.

November 8, 1997 : The implementation committee will set the quantum of license fee to be paid by Internet service providers as bank guarantee. The license fee payable during the sixth year will be indicated after a mid-term review.

No limits have been set for the number of ISPs.

Port charges and charges for leased lines will be set at promotional rates.

ISPs may charges users depending on supply and demand.

Access charges for ISPs to pay main carriers like VSNL will be set promotional basis.

The committee will consider whether to authorise ISPs to create their own transmission network.

Email licensees will be permitted to become ISPs and spared any licence fee for the first five years as in other cases.

The committee will write guidelineswith regard to the service area of ISPs.

Financial institutions and banks will be asked to encourage new entrants.

November 4, 1997 : The draft Internet licence guidelines being prepared by the DOT envisages a licence fee of Rs 600 per subscriber payable annually after five years of Internet service provider operations. A city-wise licence to the ISPs rather than a national or state-wide licence is prescribed. The licence guidelines also suggest an earnest money deposit of Rs 20 Lakhs for Class A cities, Rs 5 Lakhs for Class B cities and Rs 1 Lakh for Class C cities. The ISPs will have to provide financial guarantees of Rs 50 lakhs each for Class A cities, Rs 20 lakh each for Class B cities and Rs 2 lakhs each for Class C cities. Performance guarantees for similar cities are to be pegged at Rs 25 Lakhs, Rs 10 Lakhs and Rs 1 Lakh.

October 29, 1997 : The Implementation Committee is busy translating the ISP policy into practice. The Implementation Committee includes representatives of the Department of Telecommunications, the Department Electronics, the Planning Commission, the Indian Railways and the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited. It has the DoT secretary as its chairman.

October 22, 1997 : The cabinet has cleared the Internet policy, throwing open the services to private Internet service providers, Department of Telecommunications Secretary A V Gokak has announced. But key issues of bandwidth allocation and direct connectivity abroad still remain unresolved.

October 13, 1997 : The Union government has set up a special interdepartmental committee to examine the need for 'cyber laws' that will bring the country in tune with the realities of the digital age. Specific clauses in various Indian laws and regulations render the conduct of commercial transactions through electronic means illegal. Technological advancements have also thrown up other issues which are as yet uncovered by any legislation. For instance, the tax implications of the sale of products and services over the Internet, the global network of computers which transcends all geographical boundaries. Debate is raging internationally on which tax law should apply for such sales: The law of the seller's country, that of the country in which the Web server is located or that of the country in which the purchaser located.

October 9, 1997 : The Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited is planning to become one of the country's largest Internet service provider. MTNL is hoping to start its services in early 1998, by which time all infrastructure will be in place. MTNL's plan envisages at least 2,000 access telephone lines for the projected 20,000 Internet subscribers.

September 25, 1997 : The National Association of Software and Services Companies will submit its suggestions on the guidelines for the Internet service provider policy to Department of Telecommunications on October 6. NASSCOM Excecutive Director Dewang Mehta told reporters in Bangalore today that the draft suggestions are ready but NASSCOM wants some more interaction with the member companies before finalising recommendations. He said NASSCOM has drawn resource from the ISP policies of other countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. The most liberal ISP policy is in New he added.

September 23, 1997 : It is understood that infotech and telecom companies such as IBM, Wipro, Satyam Infoway and Global Telesystems are keen on becoming service providers. Besides, email service providers such as Sprint RPG andBusiness India Access are also keen on providing Internet services. In fact, the various email service-providers, for a long time, have been asking theDepartment of Telecommunications to give them a go-ahead to provideInternet services as they are already paying a hefty licence fee for providing email services.

September 7, 1997 : The National Informatics Centre will soon emerge as a competitor of the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, providing commercial Internet and video-conferencing services to the private sector in the country. NIC aims at an annual revenue of Rs 1 billion within three years.

August 7, 1997 : The government has decided to set up a watchdog organisation to oversee the Internet service provider business once the sector is privatised next month. The Internet Management Authority, similar to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the proposed Insurance Regulatory Authority of India, will monitor the functioning of private sector Internet service providers and keep tabs on the technical aspects of the services apart from liaising with international agencies and collaborators. The National Association of Software and Service Companies, the apex industry organisation and lobby group, wants a clear set of guidelines that will help the growth of the Internet in India. It is in complete agreement with the development plans for the IMA.

May 28, 1997 : If the Department of Electronics and the Department of Telecommunicationshave their way, India's future private Internet service providers won't have to go through Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited's gateway. This and other recommendations which could end VSNL's monopoly as thecountry's only ISP, are included in a DoE draft paper on Internet which is being drawn up together with the DoT. The paper may announced next month.

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