In the month of August 2010, India finally breached the 10 million broadband subscriber mark. That it's taken time, would be an understatement, and in our opinion, the Indian government is to blame because they refused, and continue to refuse, to open up the wireless last mile of access. The joke, though is that they had targeted 20 million broadband connections by the beginning of 2010 (download: telecom targets, doc file). So much for credibility of targets being set. The lack of unbundling of the last mile will limit the growth of IPTV in India as well. The government has benefited from this restriction, with the sale of wireless access spectrum, which has been made India's only route to broadband. We've put together information on broadband and wireline connections in India: the broadband connections are increasing slowly, even as wireline connections decline: indication enough that India cannot depend on wireline for broadband growth.
