I just came back from almost the northern most tip of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Diglipur, where I had gone researching for a story. A 300 km distance took me 12 hours by bus and by boat and left me spent at the end of the day.

However, none of that is important.

Out of the 36 hours that I was out of Port Blair, I got cell phone reception for only 12 hours (in Diglipur) and internet connectivity in my phone for only 90 minutes and that too on the fringes of Port Blair. Even in Port Blair I barely get to connect to the internet; my data card does not work and the BSNL Wi-Fi provided by the hotel, only in the limited area of the lobby, gives me enough speed to open my Gmail account, download a word file and log out in precisely one and half hours. The Gmail is also the basic HTML version and not the feature rich Gmail account we are so used to nowadays.

As journalists we have almost taken Google for granted with every story’s preliminary research being done on the search engine. However, say goodbye to Google once you are in Andamans and start relying on local modes of information for your story. The hotel boy, the auto drivers and the grocery store owners are your best bet. Or you can always ask your friends to Google some information and text it to you. I have found that quite useful too. I asked my colleagues in Delhi to Google some information and text it to me if the need so arises. Newspapers here are few and expensive and not available on demand but manage to tell people what they need to know.

The good thing is that you will be able to go out and try out the classic forms of digging out information which is something we have almost forgotten in our high technology worlds.

But before we deride the islands for their utter lack of connectivity we need to understand its geographical isolation. Due to the scattered nature of the islands, the only form of connectivity present here is the satellite connectivity provided by BSNL which is not sufficient for the entire population.

Another way by which the islands can get the kind of internet connectivity they can only dream of is by the way of the undersea cable. The undersea exclusive cable that would connect the Indian mainland with Andaman and Nicobar Islands and will provide high-speed, glitch-free broadband connectivity will cost the government Rs 2,000 crore, an amount which the Government of India is reluctant to spend on a population of just about 4 lakh.

However, a project to lay optical fibre cable (OFC) for Rs 750 crore has been approved and will take the government around two years to complete. Hence, the people of Andaman and Nicobar Islands can hope to access the internet at higher speed than what is available to them now.

According to K Manivannan, deputy general manager, there are 47 telephone exchanges in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and a tele-density of 58 percent; this is a satisfactory number as compared to the number of broadband connections in the islands. Only 3000 broadband connections in a population of about four lakh is a dismal figure and considering the rest of India is on the path of telecom and data revolution, it is even more disheartening. Broadband facility is available only in South Andaman, North & Middle district, Andaman and Car Nicobar.

Manivannan adds that university connectivity in Andaman Islands is 512 Kbps and NICNET is also not available in the islands because the required bandwidth is not available.

“The future of connectivity in Andaman and Nicobar Islands will depend on improved satellite bandwidth in the islands or on the submarine cable connectivity provided by the local administration,” says Mannivannan.

e-Governance initiatives too in the islands are not meeting their desired objectives due to constraints in broadband speed and connectivity. Though the government and people make do with local connections, voice connectivity and satellite connectivity but there is still a gaping hole in connectivity in the islands, for example, the Birth and Death Registration (BIRDS) application. This application has replaced manual registration in the islands and officials can now issue the birth and death certificates in half an hour as opposed to days that it took before. However, in many areas of the islands, officials at the centre have to resort to manual issuance of certificates because of low broadband connectivity.

In Diglipur, I engaged locals to find a lodge for me and found myself chatting with them a lot more than usual. People there do not really miss high speed internet connectivity except for a few who, when asked about slow internet shrug their shoulders and say nothing. Some make a face and look upwards and say, “What can be done, madam?”

Others, of course, do not know what they are missing.

People in Port Blair feel that BSNL has handed over more connections than what it can handle, which is the reason, according to Jaya who works at Driftwood hotel, for the slow internet speed in the island. Some of them though have worked their way around the situation; says Vishwajeet Roy, a student in Port Blair, “internet speed is the fastest after 12 AM, which is when it runs the smoothest and without any problems.”

All is not lost. This actually is true.