19 July,2010 09:41 AM IST | | Rohit Paul
For a country that touts itself as an emergent superpower, we are extremely laggard when it comes to technology. Just the other day, while surfing the Internet at a super-fast speed of 3 mbps (which I pay through the nose for), I came across an article which stated that South Korea is not satisfied with its status as the country with the highest Internet speeds in the world and is aiming to standardise speeds of 1 Gbps (gigabit per second) by 2012. Or, put simply, enough speed to download a 120-minute film in less than five minutes.
And, South Korea is not alone. In the US, Google is experimenting with fibre to home connections of 1 Gbps and is planning to bring it at a competitive price to 50,000 households initially and 'potentially to 500,000 households' according to a blog post by the company. Similar experiments are being carried out elsewhere in the world too.
While this will result in opening up a gamut of entertainment options for the average consumer, the broader picture, which our policy makers seem to be missing, is that high broadband speeds could be of immense value in a country as spread out as ours, where communication, especially in rural areas, is still dependent on rather backward means. Not only will it be very useful in the area of medicine, where specialist doctors can guide doctors in rural areas through complex medical procedures over voice chat but also enable high-quality video conferences between different branches of a company, bureaucrats and other important decision makers.
The government's rather stretched out and overtly complex 3G auction is also an indicator of the emphasis that we lay on technology. The result of the whole process is that 3G is yet to rollout properly in the country at a time when developed nations are looking at the much-faster 4G standard. Technological innovations in the country also aren't much to write home about.
It is hardly surprising, then, that the premier technology companies routinely overlook India when they launch their products, which are often game changers in other markets. All of Apple's and most of Nokia and Samsung products ufffd to name au00a0 few ufffd arrive on Indian shores when the rest of the world is looking forward to the next-generation option from these companies. Technology, in its myriad forms, is essential to us. It helps us communicate, entertain, stay in good health and even win wars if it ever comes to that point. It's high time our politicians woke up to this reality.
