Broadband will be the preferred medium for shopping, music, television, e-commerce, social networking, etc. in the times to come.

• Education in universities is set to be transformed through remote virtual learning, webinars, online portals, etc.
• Healthcare is set to change with better information on diet practices, fitness and remote online diagnostic services.
• Online banking, shopping and videobased job interviews save corporates a lot of time, effort and money.
• User-generated content and new content creation systems have enabled millions of people to generate and distribute their online documents, audio, video, etc. to the world audience.
• Citizen-government interactions would become more transparent and responsive with the emergence of an inclusive e-governance system.

Regulatory uncertainty

Establishment of a commercially viable and scalable wireless broadband infrastructure for next-generation internet, media and broadband access services on Wi-Max to create a broadband subscriber base of 50 million.

• Provision of innovative content and programming in regional languages for online communities.
• New business framework for digital content and services amongst producers, distributors and users.
• Provision of high quality e-governance services in the public-private partnership mode.
• Laying the foundation for the delivery of digital radio and TV services by 2014.
• Creation of e-commerce, banking and insurance-centric national digital information infrastructure.

Global scenario

Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Singapore, Germany, Finland, France, Estonia, Spain and Japan have launched national broadband evolution plans. The US government has also announced a stimulus programme for high speed broadband and smart grid technology using 4G technologies like Wi-Max. Broadband access has been declared a civil right in these societies. Since user demand for mobile internet in India is booming, Indian telecom operators too need to gear up for the launch of Wi-Max services in order to provide services such as mobile internet, mobile video and mobile commerce and mobile computing.