Recent Internet news and statistics
"Volunteers to Bring Internet to School in India:" story in MIT Tech,
May 8, 1998:
Indian Railways Plans To Set Up Rs. 200 Crore Internet Backbone, April
30, 1998:
The Indian Railways is planning to set up a Rs. 200 crore optical fibre
Internet and data transmission backbone along railway lines in the
country. It will have a total end-to-end length of 20,000
kilometres. The proposal for the 3-year project proposal will be sent to
railways minister Nitish Kumar for final clearance soon. Initial
capacity of the backbone will be 2 gigabits per second.
TCS Sets Up Web Centre Near New Delhi, April 30, 1998:
Tata Consultancy Services has set up a specialised centre for Internet
business solutions at Gurgaon, near New Delhi. The centre will target
Web solutions for banking, airlines and telecom sectors, as well as
consulting and software development, according to Surya Kant, group
leader, Corporate Internet Services group. TCS recently consulted for
the Ministry of External Affairs Web site.
More Internet Software
Companies
Set Up Shop In India, April 30, 1998:
Cupertino-based Softplus, a leading provider of software products and
solutions for the Internet/Intranet and call centres, plans to set up an
R&D center at its existing software development center at SEEPZ,
Mumbai. Products under development include BillEX, an Internet-based
billing and customer management system for telecom and utility companies
built with Java. SR Singapore, a Singapore-based software house with
operations in the U.S. and Australia, has drawn up a comprehensive plan
to expand its operations in India to release two e-commerce products for
the banking and health sectors.
International Data Corp. Study, April 27, 1998:
"Web-Based Training Market to Top $6 Billion by 2002"
IDC's research found that Web-based training in the U.S. produced $197
million in revenue in 1997. The $6 billion figure by 2002 represents a
compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 95% from 1997 to 2002.
U.S. Commerce Department
Report, April 15, 1998:
"The Emerging Digital Economy"
Information technology, including business on the Internet, is growing
twice as fast as the overall economy in the United States
Information Technology industry employs
7.4 million American workers, some of whom earn among the nation's highest
average salaries.
Traffic on the Internet has doubled every 100 days and worldwide Internet commerce
among business will likely surpass $300 billion by 2002, the report
concluded.
The Internet is growing faster than all other technologies that have
preceded it. Radio existed for 38 years before it had 50 million
listeners, and television took 13 years to reach that mark. The
Internet crossed the line in just four years.
In 1994, a mere 3 million people worldwide were connected to the Internet. By
the end of last year, more than 100 million were using it.
Without information technology, U.S. inflation in 1997 would have been 3.1
percent, more than a full percentage point higher than the 2 percent
it was.
Workers in the information technology industry earn an average of
almost
$46,000 annually, compared to an average of $28,000 for the private
sector
overall. Workers in the software and service industries are the highest
wage earners, at almost $56,000 annually.
Article about
Project India Connect in MIT's Tech Talk , April 8, 1998