Thread: State of broadband in India

There has been a very significant change in internet connectivity in India recently, atleast since i moved out of there and when ever i go back to india for holidays every 3-4 months or so I find something new.

Back in 2001 i used to spend Rs5000-7000 per month on a dial up connection in new delhi that is aprox $110-140 per month on a very slow dial up connection as there were no cable connections or dsl connections available and we are talking the capital of India Newdelhi. These days you can get a devent 256kbps connection for less then rs800 per month with a daily cap of 150meg in day time but thats something which is going to go away in some time as competition increases.

State owned BSNL is all over the place with thier adsl services and they are actually already equipped with modems and exchange equipment capable of pushin data up to 22meg which is not bad given the fact that not even 5% exchanges in UK are capable of doing that. Given all these facts it all comes down to the price of a PC which is still up to 5 times the monthly salary of a normal 9-5 worker which is a shame. The days ahead look bright as the internet penetration is rising by the day and services are getting cheaper and people resorting to pirated operating systems and assembled PC’s yess the day isint far when India will have a huge population of nitizens and with that as you all know will come a revolution in the lives of Indians and a huge opportunity for the comman man.

The main isp’s in India like Sify broadband, MTNL, Reliance are keeping the masses from getting connecting by artificially keeping th eprices up, For example on of the cheapest options in Delhi is sify broadband and they charge up to 650rs per month for a 64kbps connection with a 150mb usage limit every day. Now compare this with a UK isp where you get a 8meg broadband connection with no usage caps for £10 a month which is aprox rs850 a month which is a true reflection of what these isp’s in India are depriving people of.

I agree with you 100% about isp's keeping the prices up artificially but there is one more factor to it which is lack of competition and you can see it all around you as you will hardly find more then one isp in a given area with the exception of the metro areas.