There is a misconception that rural India doesn’t require more bandwidth and 3G services and the Wimax roll out will cater mainly to the urban populace. It is only a misconception, in reality the hunger for such services is far more in rural than urban areas.

Bharat Bhatia, regional director for Global Government affair, at the 3G summit  2009, said, “Rural area needs more of bandwidth compared to the urban areas of India. An Urbanite like me would use internet mostly for surfing the internet or for sending and receiving e-mails, whereas, in rural areas, where there are no discos, lounges, even the nearest theatre is 30miles away, internet becomes the only mode of entertainment, apart from cable TV.

“Urbanites may not be interested in watching movies on internet, but internet surely will become a medium for entertainment in rural areas” added Bhatia.

Supporting this, N.K. Goyal, president, communications and Manufacturing Association of India, said, “Rural India has the real demand which needs to be addressed”.

When IT Examiner asked Bhatia if the price sensitive market of rural India would be willing to spend for these services, Bhatia said, “Service providers will have to bring in pre-paid system, since the rural users are skeptical on paying per usage. One can limit the services and bundle it with pre-paid usage. Cable TV is doing remarkably well in rural areas, reason being fixed payment.” X