The committee, which includes officials from DoT, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Telecom Engineering Centre, will identify the barriers to effective and clean delivery of internet access to users.

The committee is expected to submit its report within a month, said government sources.

The committee will look into technical issues surrounding slow throughput and relative higher download time which is a common complaint of most internet users in India. It will make a thorough study of the telecom network starting at the end-user level, to pinpoint any technical problem restricting delivery.

The committee will later take up remedial steps along with concerned service providers. Wherever needed DoT will upgrade its own network to improve the quality of services, said sources. Also in the offing is an open-house session with ISPs next month to discussoperational issues.

It may be noted that according to the ISP policy announced late last year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was to come out with guidelines concerning the quality of internet services.

Another common grudge of most internet users has been of frequent breakdowns in internet connectivity. Delayed conectivity, low speed of internet connection and poor help desk services are among common complaints by end-users.

Service providers have complained of not getting adequate number of telephone lines. Absence of national internet infrastructure leading to overcrowding on the existing backbone is a big bottleneck for ISPs, said Internet Consortium India director Vikas Kanungo. Moreover, lack of trained, skilled and experienced manpower to maintain networks has had a big impact on quality of services, he added. The Internet Consortium is organising a three-day meet in the Capital on `Business on the Net'.

VSNL has been arguing that the bandwidth presently available is more thansufficient to meet the level of internet traffic in the country.

However, as more and more ISPs become operational and internet tariff grows, demand for bandwidth is expected to exponentially. As on April 27, DoT has issued 99 ISP licences, of which 18 were for all-India level and 34 for individual states. The remaining went to smaller ISPs.

As of now there are three operators who have started services on a national level. Private internet service operators presently have a subscriber base of around 35,000. According to a recent industry survey, there are 2,50,000 internet subscribers and around 8 lakh users in the country.