Yeah, that’s right, Google has announced a trial program called Google Fiber for Communities that’s planning to launch an extremely fast, experimental broadband network that will deliver speeds up to 1Gb per second. That is freaking 1000 times more bandwidth speed that majority of Indian homes get !
Although a very tough task to achieve, with Google backing, there is a hope that it may become a reality. And if it does, just think about the what it would mean to be working with those kind of speed. Downloading an entire movie in less than 7-8 seconds, or watching full High-Definition content streaming online and what not !
But what about India? We can’t get even 1 mbps bandwidth properly.
I will give you my own example – I have 1 mbps unlimited line at my home from Reliance and in last 6 months, since I have had this connection, not once have I got the promised speed (I have tried others and they are even worse). Infact, sometimes speed is so bad that I cannot carry out simple tasks like browsing properly. Take a look at the snapshot below – I have 1mbps line and actual speeds that I got while I tested !
I have been hearing Government taking steps to increase broadband penetration and speeds, however, there is absolutely no improvement what-so-ever.
There are only hollow talks that we keep hearing all the time – Like currently TRAI is talking about getting 4G off the ground, when in reality even 3G seems to be a distant dream.
As it is our Internet penetration is one of the lowest in the world and so are our bandwidth speeds. Just to give you a perspective Our neighboring country China has an Internet penetration of close to 27% and speeds of above 2 mbps. Comparatively, India has average speeds of close to 800 kbps and internet penetration of less than 7% !
I know this post does not have any answers, but only questions – but I had to vent out this frustration – and BTW, do readers have answers to these questions?