What was your first reaction when you read the title of this post? Was it elation, wishing it were actually free? Or was it contempt wondering “Who the hell uses dial-up these days?”

According to Hindu, BSNL has made its dial-up connection, NetOne, available for free. Now, better not get worked up so fast because it ain’t really free for your pocket. You still end up paying the telephone call charges. It is the internet access charge (of 10p/minute) that’s been waived off.

Looking at the idea more closely, I wonder how such an offer can prove any useful to BSNL. It is just akin to announcing that the internet charges have been slashed by 6 rupees per minute! Although Anil Jain, BSNL’s Deputy Director-General, informs that there have been almost 1000 sign ups every day since the announcement, I feel it’s nothing but a result of the “free internet access” effect than the move itself.

Anyway, such a move by BSNL spurred a thought in me. What if dial-up connections are actually made free in India? Will that see people making bee lines outside land line operators’ for new connections, all year round? How can an operator leverage on such a scenario. Let us try to analyze how life would be, in a world of free internet (dial-up, of course).

The Business Plan

• Let there be an option of “speed select” where the consumer can select the speeds that he wishes to browse in, dynamically, any time he wishes.
• Off all the plans, there could be an option to select a slower speed, say 40kbps that shall be offered absolutely for free. No Access Charge, no call charges.
• The other plans could be priced accordingly.

The Justification behind such an Outrageous Business model

• Today, mobile service providers like Airtel already provide unlimited data download via GPRS connection at the cost of Rs 200 - Rs 500 per month, depending upon the location.
• This makes me wonder, why a land line service provider can also not provide unlimited download plans on their dial-up since they already charge a monthly rental for the connection.
• Supposing that a man stays online for one hour a day and the operator charges 40p per minute for the internet access (in today’s scenario), the customer ends up paying Rs 720 per month for 30 hours’ of internet, every month. Who are we kidding? Who would wish to use such a service?
• The land line is the traditional mode of communication that is trusted by all and is default mode of connection for a vast majority of Indian population. Moreover, despite there being more mobile connections than land lines, India still has more households with a landline than mobiles. (nope, I ain’t contradicting myself. I’ll leave it onto you to figure out how! )
• This gives immediate reach for the service providers in many “not accessible” areas and also opens up opportunities of “going online” for many citizens.
• Since the Indian Government is keen to better connectivity for the whole country, such a move of offering internet services for free just might get them a grant or two, as well, to cut the costs.

Isn’t it a Step Backward?

Some might argue that, especially during the times when we are trying so hard to popularize broadband (always on connectivity, at speeds not less than 256kbps) by regulations, grants and lowering down the costs, doesn’t a move like making dial-up available for free undo all the efforts.

Well, no sir! Such a move shall help in strengthening broadband’s presence all the more.

• Following the market dynamics, if dialup costs plummet to as low as free, the costs for the so-called better services are also bound to reduce.
• Moreover, no serious internet user shall ever be satisfied with speeds that dial up connections offer. So, broadband connections shall never phase out.
• Today, websites have gotten bandwidth hungry by leaps and bounds. Services like YouTube, Flickr and Picasa are almost useless on dialup connections. Even considering how many pages a serious blogger needs to visit even before he decides to blog on a certain story, a dial up shall always be out of the question.
• Even today, we have cable operators providing 40kbps unlimited connections at very cheap rates. But the very cost involved in setting up the connection deters most people from using it. This particular segment could be absolutely wiped out if the very land line that a household already uses provides dial up connections for free.
• Moreover, the service provider can always earn the dough by providing other value added services with the connection.

So, what do you say? Is free internet really viable in India, so what if it’s 40kbps?

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