Telecommunications in India has evolved greatly in the last two decades, and the number of lines has grown to over 100 million. However, these lines are disproportionate in the urban areas and are mainly low bandwidth wireless access links. Thus there is double challenge we are facing, namely how to take the Telecom revolution to the rural areas and how to take broadband to both the urban and rural parts of India. This article discusses these issues and how the TeNeT group at IIT Madras is trying to tackle some of the problems. Copyright © 2006 by the IETE.