The board on which you surf the Net could be drowning.

In an alarming trend, 30 per cent of the Internet service providers witnessed a heavy dip in their subscriber base between March 31, 2002, and March 31, 2003. These include big players like Bharti Broadband, Reliance Communications, Data Access, CMC Ltd and Dishnet DSL.

According to statistics compiled by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, of the 193 ISPs currently operational, 57 saw their subscriber base decline over the past year.

Those who managed to keep their numbers intact hardly experienced growth.

An overwhelming 63 per cent of the country's Internet subscribers are now controlled by four companies, which include Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Satyam Infoway.

Industry observers say the numbers for most ISPs have dropped further since March.

Ashok Juneja, chief executive officer, Bharti Broadband said: "Because of regulatory and policy issues, standalone ISPs have become unviable. All our subscribers are loss-making and, therefore, we are not pushing the service in the market."

Bharti's Net subscribers declined from 120,000 in 2002 to 56,474 in 2003, while Reliance's numbers went down from 4,279 to 2,439.

On the other hand, the customer base of companies offering both Internet and telephone services is growing.

MTNL, for instance, has more than trebled its Net user base from 176,977 to 544,659 in the past year. Bharti has seen its subscriber base in Madhya Pradesh surge from 18,158 in 2002 to 27,806 in 2003 after bundling Internet and telephone services.

"The government and Trai must look into the ISP industry in detail and come up with a revival plan. For instance, basic operators must give a part of their revenues to ISPs since they benefit from Net surfing," said Amitabh Singhal, secretary, Internet Service Providers Association.

The Internet Service Providers Association has said while Trai has specified revenue shares for cellular and limited mobile operators, it has left Internet operators in the lurch.

It said Trai's order asking basic operators to offer the same commercial terms to other ISPs vis-à-vis their own operations was a step in the right direction.