Two decades of “Digital India” — and the Wi-Fi still drops during uploads.

On the eve of Digital India Week, my internet stopped working.

Poetic, isn’t it?
Here we were, celebrating a nationwide vision of digital transformation — while my Wi-Fi blinked in protest, one red light at a time.

And as I sat there, refreshing the router for the nth time, it hit me: in just forty-five days, we would be completing twenty years of consumer internet in India.
Two decades since we first logged on — and yet, the experience still feels as fragile as that trembling dial-up handshake from 1995.

The Beginning: When “Logging In” Was an Achievement

My journey into cyberspace began at a VSNL office, circa 1995.
I was a student then — a wide-eyed believer in technology — carrying ₹500 for 500 hours of annual internet access.

It wasn’t instant, of course.
You filled a form, attached a school certificate, waited two months, and prayed to the telecom gods.
Finally, one day, a letter arrived with your credentials. That moment felt like touching the future.

But before you could “touch” it, you needed something else — a dial-up modem.
Mine was a 2400/9600 bps fax/data model that connected you to the world through a series of screeches, hums, and hopeful tones.

Each connection attempt was an act of faith.
We’d dial the number again and again — waiting for that magical handshake tone that meant you’d landed in the digital realm.

The Wild West of Cyberspace

There were no browsers yet.
Just BBS (Bulletin Board Systems), ASCII screens, and the rare joy of messaging a stranger on “Delhi Online.”
It was raw, it was clunky, it was slow — and it was beautiful.

When the connection finally worked, you didn’t just “go online.”
You entered another world.
It felt sacred — a pilgrimage through pixels.

Even my grandmother knew about it — she’d once asked me to read a Reader’s Digest article about this mysterious new thing called “Cyberspace.”
I remember calling her the day my connection worked. “I’m in cyberspace, Nani!” I said proudly.

The Era of Upgrades

A few years later, the internet began growing up.
Private players like Satyam Online, Mantra, and Dishnet arrived, bringing with them something revolutionary — over-the-counter access cards.

You no longer needed to queue at the VSNL office.
You just bought a pack, scratched the code, and dialed in.

Of course, phone bills still made your parents gasp.
We learned to surf late at night, when calls were cheaper, and VSNL didn’t count hours.
Nighttime became the unofficial “national broadband plan.”

If you got disconnected mid-chat on Yahoo! Messenger, you didn’t curse — you sighed, dialed again, and hoped the modem gods would be kinder this time.

Fast Forward: From Modems to Modems

Today, I have Wi-Fi speeds that early-’90s engineers would have called science fiction — 16 Mbps broadband, LTE on phones, even a backup Tata Photon.

And yet, the experience hasn’t really changed.
I still find myself staring at blinking lights on a modem, checking if the “Internet” light is red or green.
We’ve moved from copper wires to fibre optics — but the anxiety of connectivity remains the same.

The difference?
Back then, it was a luxury.
Now, it’s a necessity.

And yet, the service reliability hasn’t caught up with our dependence.

The Economics of Unreliability

Here’s the irony of our “Digital India.”
In 1995, a student queued up for months to get connected.
In 2015, a family of four has ten connections — mobile, broadband, Wi-Fi, backup dongles — and still can’t rely on one.

Each user is counted multiple times in national statistics, inflating the numbers of “connected citizens,” while the unconnected remain invisible.

The result?
We appear more connected than we are — a nation of multiple modems, blinking in unison.

And the ISPs, aided by “Fair Usage Policy,” now charge us more for consuming more — in a country where the push should still be for access, not excess.

The Digital Dream (and the Digital Disconnect)

As we celebrate Digital India Week, I can’t help but feel nostalgic for the sincerity of 1995.
Back then, connection was earned.
Today, it’s assumed.

But somewhere between ambition and reality, we’ve built an ecosystem that celebrates connectivity as a number — not as a quality.

For all our talk of “smart cities” and “connected villages,” the real challenge is reliability — not reach.
It’s not about getting online; it’s about staying online.

Two Decades Later

From BBS to broadband, from terminals to touchscreens, India’s internet has travelled a long way.
But perhaps the metaphor remains apt:

The nation logged in early, but the connection still drops too often.

So, as we step into the next phase of our digital journey, maybe the question isn’t just how many are online — but how deeply we are connected.

Because the future of Digital India will not be measured by the number of devices we own —
but by the continuity of our connection, both technical and human.

Until then, we’ll keep resetting the router —
and hoping this time, the light stays green.