The company is believed to have taken the step as it is unable to get fresh telephone lines from Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to support the steep increase in the number of subscribers. "If we start issuing new accounts at this stage, it will become virtually impossible for subscribers to connect to the Internet," a VSNL source said.

VSNL, sources say, is now operating its Gateway Internet Access Service (GIAS) at a subscriber-to-telephone lines ratio of 1:15. In other words, it has one telephone line for every 15 Internet subscribers, which means that out of every 15 subscribers, only one can connect to the Internet at any given point of time. Globally, the accepted standardfor Internet services is 1:10. For its 60,000-and-odd Internet subscribers in Mumbai, VSNL has only 4,000 lines.

According to sources, VSNL has already stopped issuing fresh Internet connections in some cities it operates in and is doing so in others. The company directly provides Internet services in Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, and provides the service in association with DoT in about 18 other cities.

The freeze has seen the wait-list for new connections zoom. It is estimated that since stopping the issue of fresh accounts about a week ago in Mumbai, the waiting list in the city alone has crossed 1,000.

Meanwhile, it is understood that VSNL is getting an additional 5,000 telephone lines for its Internet services in Mumbai. Sources said that it would take an estimated two weeks to have these new lines in place before the company can start issuing fresh Internet accounts. "We are adding more lines so that we are able to maintain a healthy subscriber-to-lineratio," a source said.

The demand for Internet connections in the country has increased tremendously since VSNL cut its dial-up Internet connection charges about six months ago. The company had reduced the rates for its TCP/IP accounts from Rs 15,000 for 500 hours or one year, whichever is earlier to Rs 10,000 for 500 hours or one year and had also introduced accounts for 100 and 250 hour durations providing flexibility to the users. From about 80,000 accounts before the charges were reduced, the number of Internet accounts in the country have nearly doubled to an estimated 1.5 lakh.

INSIGHT

onus on DoT, MTNL

The recently-announced infotech policy has envisaged 10 lakh Internet subscribers by 2000. Considering the global ratio standards prescribed, basic service-providers will have to provide 1 lakh telephone lines exclusively dedicated to Net services by the turn of the century. Moreover, with the imminent entry of private Net service-providers, basic service-providers will have their task cut out tocater to the burgeoning subscriber club. However, with only a few private basic-service providers slated to begin their operations in the near future, MTNL and DoT will have to take on a higher responsibility of providing adequate lines.