Byline: Karan Sehgal
Information technology (IT) companies in Goa continue to grow weary of state-owned telecom giant, BSNL's services even after witnessing minimum output from the telco's recent broadband upgrade from 512kbps to 2mbps on October 1.
Considering the large number of small IT start ups in the state, what could have been a win-win for BSNL and companies both, is now going down south with many start ups even opting for two connections, in case one falters in time of dire need.
Milind Prabhu, CEO, Genora Infotech, says, "The quality of BSNL’s service isn’t good. The downtime is high. We are not using BSNL for these very reasons. (However) BSNL’s penetration is good. If they address issues like poor service and high downtime, then it will be a great service to small IT companies, which require a broadband connection".
Another IT professional, who preferred remaining anonymous weighed in: "BSNL’s broadband connection doesn’t work 8 days in a month". The downtime is so high that no company would like to rely on BSNL’s internet connection, or else they will lose connection. There are small IT start-ups in the state, which prefer having two internet connections for the fear that one may be down, when they need it the most.
In wake of this concern, IT stakeholders have shown quite satisfaction with services from other private players in the broadband business. Jervis Pereira, Girector, Goa Information Technology Innovation Centre (GITIC), said, “I’ve been using Tata Teleservices’s connection for sometime now. I’m extremely satisfied with it. In the last one year, the internet was down for just 3 days, which is unbelievable”
