Is Internet penetration in India dependent on Regional languages?

I agree with what Nishant said, penetration depends on the usage and value of that specific product. So I don't think internet is dependent on regional language, and people also don't expect that. Nowadays most of them are familiar with English and there is no need for the regional language to play a major role in Internet.    

I think sahd said a good thing....Penetration and usage are two different things.......The language is a hindrance for usage but it can not affect the penetration that much expected....

First and foremost, the popularity/usage of anything depends on its intrinsic utility value. For a majority of Indians ( housewives/senior citizens/village folk ) there is no direct/indirect usage of internet and its related technologies. So we need to build more on the applications front such that we can involve them in the evolution process.

A few decades back telephone penetration was not very much. But by and by as the migration for work/studies became the norm telephones and then mobiles are part of every one's daily life. 

It does not depend on regionla language . It depends on person how he is aware of outside world. some people think how to use computer like this. Again internet help to connect to world and lot of people from rural got interview in outside wlike middle east sitting in village.I am right now pursuing my PGDM and here some of my frnds are from very backward places of the country, they cant speak english very well but they make the most use of the internet in the college always searching for the topics, looking for the news , current happenings. I think its the attitude (learning attitude) of a person that matters. NOT THE REGIONAL LANGUAGE. This cannot be a barrier.

no it is ridiculous. it is not dependent on regional vernacular.

No, language is not a big barrier.  It is only the affordability of a computing device and a broadband conexon.

Dear Sonal,

In your opinion, if u say language is a barrier to internet penetration?....then what is the solution?....a debate is valuable only when one can discuss and share new ideas and solutions,

Is teaching english to RURAL INDIA solution to increasing penetration - for past 50 years govt is trying to eradicate illateracy, They have been successful but still long way to go, keeping in mind length and breadth of the country as well as demographics.

Whats next solution?: creating applications, programs, portals etc in regional langauges...is that a solution... partly YES...and you yourself discussed the initiatives taken by many organisations.

How abt building infrastructure?....quite possible and an easier task compared to teaching english to 100s of millions of rural indians!!..

Visit few small towns and villages in India, there are villages which do not even have GSM CDMA tower, they share the frequency with towers present in next big town in near the village!!..

In this kind of a scenario, which is a more achievable and solvable solution: making rural India English Literate or Setting up the infrastructure.?

There are so many small grocery shops, cybercafes, in small towns, who provide railway ticket services and even writing emails for village folks nowadays. Villages in south india have cybercafe's where many families have their men working in middle east and other countries. These cybercafe owners have created  a general email id and given that ids to families who share it with there acquintances abroad. So the person abroad sends email to his parents n family (just general hi hello kinds and this cyber cafe guy shares the same with families, and in return even writes emails for them and provides internet telephony services also) !!!.... offcourse he charges a small fee for all these sevices. So effectively there may be one internet connection, but effective users could be in 10s or 50s !!

Hence local languages are surely barrier to penetration but now a complete hindrance.

I think penetration also depends on internet usage right, with most of Indians don't know English for that matter and don't completely understand the language...so with less usage of internet how can one penetrate in a better way....even with proper infrastructure and bandwidth that you are talking about....

Dear Sonal,

I am a little confused on this debate. Weather you are talking abt Penetration of Internet (i.e a PC simple enabled with internet) or No. of People ACTUALLY using internet?.. Because PENETRATION and USAGE are completely 2 different concepts. Like in Print media, there is subscription and readership. There can we one subscription of a newspaper at home, but probably 5 individuals reading it!.. Similarly in case if Internet, there can be one connection at home, but multiple people using the same.

If you are talking purely abt penetration/subscription, i think Language is not such a big hindrance when it comes it penetration. But it surely is when it comes to usage.

The reason for low penetration is primarily

-lack of adequate infrastructure

-low awareness level on usage and benefits of internet amongts cat B and C towns.

-high installation cost of infrastructure.

-Govt Regulations on bandwidth distribution

-Poor Post sales Customer Support Service ( at times irate customers decide to cancel the existing connection also, if they are not able to get desired service).

As far as regional languages are concerned, yes that leads to major hindrance on increasing the number of users. in cat b and c towns, which are majorly looked upon as growth engines for India in the future, lack of education and specially lack of english language understanding is a major issue.

But initiaties like what google has done, or other examples which you quoted at the same time, more and more applications, portals, websites being developed in regional languages, we should only expect growth in times to come.

So in a nutshell, Regional Langauges are reason for lack of penetration but big reason for lack of usage.