Govt. Will Soon Increase Minimum Internet Speed In India To 2 Mbps!

India, the rising global power which aims to defeat China very soon, is ranked 89th out of 149 countries, when it comes to average Internet speed (both broadband and mobile; as per Akamai Q1 2017 report)

This is indeed very bad state of Internet in India, but the good thing is that, Govt. wants to change this.

And change very soon.

Reports are emerging that Govt. of India will soon increase the minimum Internet speed by 4-times!

However, no deadline has been set, and it hasn’t been shared how this will happen.

But to kickstart the process of improving Digital India landscape in India.

And, to welcome the 5G revolution which is about to hit India.

Govt. of India: Minimum Internet Speed Will Be 4X Faster!

Right now, as per the Govt. guidelines, minimum Internet speed for broadband connections is 512 kbps, which is actually very very less compared to what other countries have.

In South Korea, their citizens get an average of 26 Mbps speed!

Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan has admitted this major flaw in the Digital India mission, and has assured that things will only improve from here.

She said,

“We are very slow. While we have done a lot on (providing internet) access, we have not been able to actually deliver the quality of service that is required,”

As per reports, Aruna has made clear that minimum Internet speed needs to be pushed up, if we want 5G level Internet infrastructure in the country. She said,

“2 mbps is the basic minimum. We should definitely mandate this. If at all, it should be higher than that. It cannot be lower than that.”

Internet Speed in India: The Problem

Bandwidth is the biggest problem which the country faces, and TRAI is very much aware of this.

In their consultation paper regarding Internet speed in India, released this June, TRAI said,

“Their main concerns (internet speed) in this regard were limited availability of spectrum per operator in 2G/3G bands; low coverage zones such as basements, high rise buildings, tunnels; and variations due to external factors such as subscriber’s device quality and type, number of subscribers browsing the data services, peak/off peak time, transmission bandwidth, website behaviour etc.”

Akamai report of 2015 pointed out that India has 2nd worst Internet speed in the world, even as 1 billion Indians are without Internet.

Although things have improved, and state-telecom carrier BSNL has made 1 Mbps as the minimum FUP speed for their users. In May this year, reports emerged that BSNL will increase minimum broadband speed to 4 Mbps, but has kept FUP speed unchanged.

But ground realities are different, and even TRAI has admitted in their consultation paper that 3G users are sometimes getting 10 Kbps speed. As per last year’s Akamai report, we were ranked lowest in Asia, in terms of Internet speed.

Yes, challenges exist. But we are glad that Govt. is taking note of this situation, and they want improvement.

2 Mbps as minimum assured speed would be a good, solid step in this direction.