The Elusive Last Mile to the Internet

Abstract

As organizations continue to Web-enable mission-critical network-centric information systems, reliable and high bandwidth connectivity to the Internet is essential. While glut of Internet bandwidth is being witnessed in the developed countries, Internet services are still in their infancy in developing countries. Getting high-speed access to the Internet, especially in the remote areas of developing countries, poses challenges due to poor telecommunications infrastructure. With limited bandwidth available from service providers, network managers have to find ways other than simple raw bandwidth increments to meet the increasing demand from the users, especially for improved Web performance. While metrics for measuring Internet performance are being refined by researchers, defining service level agreements with the Internet service providers based on these metrics is challenging, especially in an evolving market. This case highlights the experiences and lessons learned from such an exercise at the Indian Institute of Management located in Lucknow, India.