India way down in global tech space

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Chennai: Despite big strides in the information, communication and telecom (ICT) space in recent years, India lags far behind its east Asian neighbours such as South Korea and China in bridging the digital divide as well as telecom penetration. Also, the cost of modern communication technologies in India remains far higher compared to these nations. But the silver lining is that despite a late start, India is expected to catch up with China in terms of mobile telephony by 2008.

According to numbers available with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), India has the lowest penetration of fixed telephone lines compared to Korea, Malaysia and China. While South Korea has the highest fixed line penetration of 51 per 100 people, Malaysia has 18.5 per 100 people. In the case of China, fixed lines are available for every 18 out of 100 persons while in India this number is a paltry 3.9 per 100 persons.

Similarly, in the case of mobile telephony penetration, South Korea again leads the pack with 75 per 100 persons followed by Malaysia which has 43.9 out of 100 persons mobile. China ranks third with 18.3 mobile phone lines per 100 persons while in the case of India the number is just 2.6 per 100 persons.

In the case of internet connectivity, South Korea once again comes out with flying colours. Twenty six out of every 100 South Koreans are connected to the world through internet while 12 out of every 100 persons in Malaysia have internet connection. Around 2.4 out of every 100 Chinese have internet access but India again is at the bottom of the list with a net penetration of just 0.4 per 100 persons.

In the broadband space, India’s performance is abyssmal with only 0.019 out of every 100 Indians having access to broadband network. The picture is not rosy for Malaysia as well where only 0.4 per 100 people has broadband connectivity. The case is a tad better for China where every 1.4 per 100 persons has access to broadband. South Korea leads the pack in the broadband space as well with 25 out of every 100 Koreans having access to superior technology.