Though officially the VSNL monopoly ended on July 25, 1998 with the issue of a notification which threw open gateway infrastructure to other public and government organisations directly and private ISPs after necessary security clearances, it has remained only on paper for the private sector.

However considering the self proclaimed February 15 deadline by DoT, Thursday's meeting gains significance. Symbolic of the lack of confidence so far is the fact that the DoT has receivedonly two applications, one from the Hyderabad based IntechNet Ltd. and another from the Ghaziabad based Jain Studios, with most large companies deciding to wait and watch before taking the costly plunge.

The record so far is perhaps the reason for this lack of confidence. As one major player put it, it has been "as much a process of learning as it has been one of educating the public sector telecom utilities of the nitty gritty of internet operations" for the private sector ISPs. Despite the 65 licences already granted for commencing private ISP operations in the country, only a handful have begun the process of actually providing internet access.

And given the experience of even the few who have the facility, it is understandable why they are wary of taking the plunge and investing close to Rs 100 crore on setting up a private gateway before they are sure of the future course. The country's first ISP, Satyam Infoway is a case in point. Launched with much fanfare in the middle of November last and nowspread to several centres in the country, Satyam 15,000 subscriber base is unlikely to grow in the near future thanks to various glitches which the company says the DoT and VSNL are responsible.

While insufficient telephones lines at various centres has stymied the spread of the company's dial-up access, the price differentials in the ISDN/E1R2 lines has palyed havoc with its price structure. "While we have 15,000 subscribers, the throughput has been only 39 per cent which means lower quality service", R Ramaraj, Satyam Infoway told The Financial Express.Understandably then Satyam has had to invest approximately an additional Rs 1.5 crore to increase its bandwidth from the earlier 2mbps to 8 mbps to service the same number of accounts as it had thought feasible on its earlier investment thereby increasing the project cost, Ramaraj informed.Even then Satyam is unwilling to rush in to set up a private gateway without first clearing all the policy grey areas which we hope Thursday's expected guidelines willclear, he said.

IntechNet's managing director I C Rao is one who has gained from Satyam's experience. "Even though I have to depend on the DoT for the last mile, I am not willing to risk my reputation due to a bad gateway access", he said. That is why IntechNet, a category-A ISP licencee, was the first company to apply for a private gateway licence in the country despite the high investment involved.

Not surprisingly then, Rao who has finalised all the technology tie-ups for the venture, hopes to kick-off operations by the end of the month provided the Thursday meeting of the inter-ministerial committee is able to reach a positive conclusion the security clearance and guidelines.