A recent survey put the number of Internet users in India at 37 million. Out of that, 25 million were defined as active users, i.e. those users who used the Internet at least once in the last 30 days.

But a large percentage of these users, over 60 percent by some estimates, accessed the Internet from a public Internet cafe. The total installed base of PCs was not more than 20 million--including home, office, educational institutes and government segments. Broadband (speeds of 256Kbps and above) is just beginning to make inroads in the home segment, with the largest landline operator BSNL pushing hard for dial-up upgrades to ADSL.

The growth of the Internet and broaband in India is stymied not only by the low PC base in homes but also due to a lack of compelling content and services. India is a culturally diverse and multilingual country. But content on the Internet is predominantly in English. Talking of services, task-based online services such as job hunting and matrimonial search have seen the most action so far. But utility services like banking, bill payments, ticketing and niche services such as online trading are also beginning to get traction.
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According to recently released reports from an IAMAI-IMRB survey, Internet users in India reached 37 million in the month of September 2006. During the same period the number of active users rose to 25 million.

Estimated user base:

• Sept 2006: 37m ever users and 25m active users


• March 2007: 42m ever users and 28m active users


• March 2008: 54m ever users and 43m active users

"Active user" is defined as someone who has used the Iternet at least once in the last 30 days, while "ever user" is someone who has used the Internet at least once.

Another important figure in the report was that around 38 percent of Indian Internet users (14 million) spent an average of 8 hours per week online.
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Triple-play is here. State-owned telco Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) is set to launch India's first Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service.

MTNL offers basic landline and mobile telephony in the metro cities of Mumbai and New Delhi. Its ADSL broadband service Triband has around 300,000 subscribers. MTNL will offer IPTV to its 2.2 million subscribers in a week's time.
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Indian mainstream media has dicovered blogs. And there's a blog rush. Everyone and his publisher are launching blogs.

News channel CNN-IBN was the first to launch blogs on its Web site IBNLive. The channel was a late entrant in the crowded news segment and needed to stand out. It did so by championing the concept of "citizen journalism" and embracing new media wholeheartedly. Almost all the content posted in the IBN Blogs section are made by CNN-IBN employees.



NDTV, the other tech-savvy channel, followed by launching its own blogging site. NDTV Blogs is a blog hosting site where the general public can register and post. But the posts are moderated before they can appear on the site. I could not find any blogs by NDTV employees on the site.
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