The ISP Summit offered the potential ISPs a look into the kind of IT Solutions on offer from key players in the Internet space including Citibank, Microland, Millenium Office and Times Interactive.

The event was inaugurated by National Centre for Software Technology director S Ramani, who highlighted the various business concerns of the ISPs in the wake of the recent ISP Policy announced on Novermber 7, 1998 by the department of telecommunications. Addressing the Internet as a sunrise industry, he reietrated that the basic idea of the Internet was to meet the communication needs of the user.

Delivering the keynote address Microsoft Corporation India managing director SanjayMirchandani delved on the issue of how the Internet was fast becoming an extension of our way of life. Special emphasis was given to how ISPs need to differentiate themselves from each other depending on their service offerings, especially since virtual private networks and interactive entertainment was fast converging.

`Customisation' and `Personalisation' were two of the buzzwords being purported as survival characteristics, which the Microsoft personnel explained were part of their standards-based solution suites like - the Microsoft Commercial Internet System (MCIS) 2.0, which integrated media like an ad server, commerce server into the entire solution package.

Compaq India industry marketing manager (telecom, E-commerce and ISP) Kallol Hazra also reiterated his companies drive for offering comprehensive solutions, which were reliable, available and scalable to specifics, for ISPs in the country. In fact Compaq, has already provided an ISP solution on its server to ETH Dishnet, which is one of thefirst providers to start its services in India.

Intel's GB Kumar outlined how the company was uniquely positioned to provide a universal, affordable and scalable computing platform to meet the requirements of ISPs. "At Cisco, we belive that the Internet revolution has the power to change the world," Cisco Systems sales manager Sirish Kanetkar, while outlining the company's range of networking products for the Indian consumer.

Loral Orion Asia Pacific vice-president Mark Gilroy recalled the concerns of domestic ISPs regarding bandwidth and consequent quality of service. He emphasised the optimisation of an ISP's Internet connectivity, by taking advantage of the asymmetric broadcast characteristics of the Internet and leveraging terrestrial links for better network performance at a lower price.