Indian Government To Increase Internet Speed By 4 Times

The government of India in a bid to increase the internet speed has flagged off the procedure of increasing the minimum internet speed to at least 2 MBPS against the existing 512kbps.

The secretary for Telecom, Aruna Sundararajan has said that the government is aware of the slow internet speed available to users in many parts of the country and that the speeds promised by 3G and 4G networks no where meet the actual speeds received by the consumers. The issue is crucial as the country gears up for a pan India 5G roll out along with the implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) focused applications.

"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," said Sundararajan.

The telecom secretary also added that India needs better internet speeds to meet the targets of ambitious initiatives like Digital India Programme, digital payments, 5G rollout etc. Answering the question of whether a speed of 2MBPS would be sufficient to accomplish digital transformation, the secretary added.

Asked whether 2 mbps -which is also being pushed for ward by regulator TRAI -will be sufficient for digital transformation, 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."

The slower internet speed issue has come as a challenge for a majority of mobile users in India, particularly when download speeds of videos and other heavy applications is not at all satisfactory. The challenge also comes amid the roll out of faster networks like 4G, particularly after the roll out of Jio services.

Their main concerns 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 behavior, etc," said sector regulator Trai in its consultation paper on Data Speed Under Wireless Broadband Plans' this year.

A global report published recently which covered about 63 million internet speed tests across the globe placed India at 119th position in a list of 189 countries in terms of internet speed available to users.

Source: techgig.com