India Internet News
Union Minister Reports Low Internet Literacy Even In Indian Cities
26 July 2011
Sachin Pilot, Union Minister of State for IT, has assured that a "21st century" infrastructure would be established for high speed broadband access; whereas his report shows worries about "low internet literacy" even in cities.
Yesterday, he published a report named 'Innovation In Telecom' by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) over here. He didn't mentioned any time-frame for driving in "21st century" infrastructure, not even gave any remark on hi report.
The report, by PwC, states "even in the urban regions, Internet literacy is quite low, and so is the usage. It will take a generation for data usage to pick up.... Non-voice services, including value added services and SMS form just five to 15 per cent of total operator revenues, which goes to over 50 per cent for operators in major countries. The number for mobile data would be still lower."
The report suggests that countryside teledensity has not yet achieved the targets and the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund generated for the telecom industry has not been used effectively. A lot of product inventions still start from the Western economies, whereas Indian companies appears to be happily adopting them. The cause of this is missing proper research infrastructure, education and investment.
"Talent is one drawback we severely face in India. While India produces twice as many engineering graduates as the United States, only less than five per cent have basic vocational skills essential for fruitful employment. Only about 25 per cent graduates in India have the skills that deem them fit to work for multinational companies. This is because most institutes in India are built with the idea of meeting the demand for graduate education, focused on enrolling as many students as possible."
The report also shows concern about the fear among telecom area investors regarding clarity in telecom policy.