What is the hype about VSNL Internet services?
Anil Wanvari There’s been a lot of hype about VSNL’s internet service. Sure it needs to be lauded as the pioneer of the commercial use of the internet in India. Sure it deserves praise for cutting internet access prices for the truckloads of subscribers who have signed on. Sure it deserves a clap for working hard to set up international internet gateways, which will serve to hook up all internet service providers (ISPs) to the world wide web. But then it deserves a rap on the knuckles for doing its best to keep out competition from private players and bringing about a reduction in prices only when there was a threat from other ISPs. It also deserves a scolding for putting all its efforts behind convincing the authorities that private gateways should not be encouraged so that it retains its monopoly. Most of all, it deserves a talking down for not sprucing up its service keeping in pace with the spurt in its subscriber base to more than 20,00,000.In Mumbai, one would expect VSNL or any
