Earlier, MTNL had fixed a minimum monthly charge of Rs 5,000, which has now been removed. As per the new structure, there is a one-time registration fee of Rs 3,000 and a monthly rental of Rs 1,000. The monthly rental fee will have to paid in advance for a period of 12 months.

Video-conferencing, using a PC-mounted camera with one channel of ISDN for the pictures and other for the voice and data transmission, has for long been an important communication facility in corporate circles. Now, with the entry barrier gone, it will be the home segment or smaller users who can make use of this facility.

ISDN, having a bandwidth of 128 kbps or two channels of 64 kbps each, brings tremendous improvement to communication facilities such as desktop video-conferencing, datatransfer, simultaneous voice calls and digital fax. It can also be used for two separate telephone lines. However, a telephone line has a very lower bandwidth of around 28-32 kbps.

Companies like PictureTel say that it is expecting an immediate rise of 30-40 per cent growth in business. PC video conferencing card makers like D-Link said it also sees a rise in demand for its cards.

D-Link manufactures internal cards connected to a mounted camera with a price tag of approximately Rs 8,000-9,000 while PictureTel provides high-end products for corporate and government agencies.

PictureTel director and country head for South Asia, TN Sundar, said with cost barrier being eliminated, corporates can now have higher 384 kbps video-motion conferencing, which is near-perfect to a TV frame. "More users will now use it and traffic will double in a year's time," he said.

Any further relaxation in ISDN costs can even affect the VSATs, which are in use by corporate for video-conferencing.

Once the ISDN becomescompletely affordable, customers will have a choice in mixing and matching. "I believe it will open a completely new highway for communication with more and more people preferring it," Sundar said. ISDN is a point to multi-point communication link whereas a leased line is a dedicated point-to-point link. Hence, ISDN has a global reach.

The companies in this segment will target the 200,000-odd STD booths in the country to sell their products since video-conferencing facility in booths will be an added attraction and a great business opportunity.

PictureTel is planning to launch new products, especially for the small office home office (SOHO) market. It is likely to come out with lower-end, volume products soon.

The company, which had targeted a turnover of Rs 30 crore for 1999, hopes to improve upon the figures. Semiconductor major Intel Corporation had picked up a stake in it last year by investing close to $31 million.

Earlier, Intel was competing with PictureTel in the video-conferencing marketthrough its products, Pro-share for desktops and Team for groups. With Intel deciding to jointly market its products through PictureTel, more products in all categories can be expected to hit the market using the Intel expertise.