How Internet Came To India 25 Years Ago, From The Man Who Saw It Happen

"I personally feel very pleased and satisfied to see where we are in India's connectivity journey today from that humble beginning on 15th August 1995," Kapil Jain tells me, speaking all the way from Singapore.

If India is one of the fastest growing Internet markets in the world, contributing hundreds of million of monthly active users on some of the largest Internet platforms worldwide, Kapil Jain is acutely aware of the behind-the-scenes work that went into connecting India to the rest of the world, playing his part in getting households and businesses online 25 years ago.

Reuters

ALSO READ: 25 Years Ago, 9.6 Kbps Connection Was Rs 5,000 When Internet Began In India

Kapil Jain works at Tata Communications, serving as the Vice President of Product Management, Global Core Network Infrastructure Strategy, Development and Transformation. But he started his professional career at VSNL (Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited), the Indian government entity that essentially launched Internet in India back in 1995 -- which Tata Group acquired a controlling stake in 2002 and later renamed as Tata Communications in 2008.

"I consider myself lucky to be part of that transformation journey team, which started the Internet in India in August 1995. When VSNL started the Internet in India, it was officially known as the GIAS or Gateway Internet Access Service or, in other words, dial-up internet. I don't know if anybody today recalls how the dial-up used to work. Everybody needed to have a modem in the house or office, and that model had to connect to a telephone line," recollects Jain.

The modem used to basically connect to a central internet node, and the iconic creak and croak sound of the modem establishing the Internet connection over the telephone line was an experience in itself. "Listening to that sound used to make people very happy and go wow, we are connected to the Internet," Kapil Jain remembers with a chuckle. I share Jain's laugh, for I remember it fondly as well -- connecting to "dial up" Internet through the landline phone connection in our home at the time, listening to the modem establishing Internet connection (and praying that it didn't malfunction in the process).

"When Internet services began in India, at that time it was a satellite network, since there were hardly any sub-sea telecommunications cable before 1995 in India," recalls Kapil Jain. "Till about 1995, India was primarily connected to the outside world via satellites and VSNL carried all the voice traffic outside and into India -- so the primary mechanism to carry those voice minutes was satellite. We used the same medium to create Internet bandwidth initially, which is basically bandwidth for connecting Internet traffic from India to the rest of the world."

Kapil Jain continues, "While SEA-ME-WE2 cable was there in India in 1995, which was an analog cable, the first real usable Internet cables landed in India at Mumbai in 1997 (FLAG EA) and Mumbai and Cochin in 1999 (SEA-ME-WE3). These were the two initial cables in late 90s that helped build higher bandwidth undersea backbones with international partners and connect to global Internet cloud, and since then we have continued to invest and grow India¡¯s Internet bandwidth. Today we are the only global Tier-1 ISP who¡¯s in India and serving the Indian market."

With satellites used to connect to the Internet cloud outside India, speeds were unimaginably slow -- capping off at a measly 128 kbps. "A 9.6 kbps Internet speed was considered a great connection speed at that time and 128 kbps was like a great backbone connection speed -- in stark contrast to today¡¯s terabytes on the backbone level and multiple gigs of access at the end customer site," recollects Jain.

ALSO READ: I Saw How India Connects To The Internet At 3.6 Tbps At An Undersea Cable Landing Station

The Indian Techonomist / Mumbai Heritage Twitter

"We started with four cities, Bombay Delhi, Calcutta, and Madras -- yes, Mumbai was still Bombay at the time and Chennai still Madras. And from there we continued expanding several Internet nodes into various parts of the country," remembers Kapil Jain, about India's early Internet journey unfolding.

"BSNL didn¡¯t exist at the time, so we expanded and connected with help from India¡¯s Department Of Telecommunications," Kapil Jain mentions. "We used to take 16, 32, 48 individual telephone lines in our office to create a modem set into which individual users could then dial in to connect to the Internet, and that¡¯s essentially how the Internet began in India. While this was happening, VSNL continued investing and building up the connectivity infrastructure in the country. We kept on investing in this growth of infrastructure."

Then the sub-sea cables started coming to India -- in fact, one of the oldest surviving undersea cables right now in India started back 1999. Kapil Jain remembers, "When the sub-sea cables started coming and creating higher bandwidth for backbone, that¡¯s where the Internet connectivity in India started increasing from satellite to undersea cable backbone. If I recall correctly, by the year 2000 we were at multiple STM-1 (Synchronous Transport Module level-1) level backbones, like 155 Mbps backbone from a small satellite backbone in the beginning in August 1995. And on the edge side, on the customer's side, the technology improved from 9.6 kbps to where we were offering 56 kbps from the digital dial-up line which we used to call E1R2s."

Speaking about early users, "My very first Internet customer, where I personally went to his house to set up the Internet connection, was the leading cardiologist in Kerala at the time," Jain remember fondly. "He wanted the Internet in his home to study about the latest research and studies on cardiology." Access to early Internet in India wasn't a cheap affair, if you look at the VSNL rate card above, and it wasn't anywhere close to ubiquitous. Not only was the Internet connection expensive, but you needed a desktop PC (at least) to access it -- which was also a big ask for most Indians during 1995-2000.

"At that time mobile internet was not so prevalent, but mobiles at least started putting the Internet into people's pockets. And in parallel, we started expanding our network into the enterprise market and connecting them on our fiber access networks," Jain remembers. And the rest, as they, say is history.

Even from Singapore, Jain is helping write the latest chapter in India's connectivity journey, hopeful and optimistic about his work and its potential. "I was just reading a report yesterday which claimed Asia is going to give the next 1 billion Internet users," Kapil Jain mentions, "of which India is surely going to contribute a huge number. So yes, 25 years of Internet is an occasion to celebrate, but we need to focus on the next 25 years and see how Internet will drive innovation and growth at an unprecedented scale."