TRAI Classifies Minimum Broadband Speed As 512kbps

India’s telecom regulator TRAI issued an guideline, making it mandatory for every Broadband service provider ( Wireline – ISPs) to offer minimum download speed 512 Kbps as “broadband’ and reports the number of broadband subscribers in accordance with the revised definition i.e. greater than 512 Kbps.

Earlier The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) issued a Notification on revising the definition of Broadband as ‘Broadband is a data / Internet connection that is able to support interactive services including Internet access and has the capability of the minimum download speed of 512 Kbps to an individual subscriber from the point of presence (PoP) of the service provider intending to provide broadband service.

Accordingly TRAI’s monthly telecom subscribers report, the minimum download speed has been increased from 256 Kbps to 512 Kbps for all wireline ‘Broadband services.

As per TRAI’s latest data India has 14.91 Million Wire-line Broadband subscribers with minimum downloading speed of 512Kbps. However, it may be scent that increase in the minimum download speed from 256 Kbps to 512 Kbps has not hugely impacted the overall number of wire-line broadband subscribers.

In India there are 153 Service Providers (ISPs) which are providing Wireline Broadband services. Out of these, 105 SPs (which constitute 98.71% of the market share) have submitted broadband subscription data for the month of October 2013 as per revised definition of broadband. For the rest of the ISPs, data from previous month (with pre-revised definition) has been retained.

Top five ISPs / Broadband service providers in terms of market share (based on subscriber base) are BSNL (9.96 million), Bharti Airtel (1.32 million), MTNL (1.11 million), Hathway Cable (0.37 million) and Beam Telecom (0.34 million).

It is significant to mention that India’s 3rd largest Broadband service provider Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) which is operating just in 2 circles – Mumbai and Delhi already moved to minimum 1Mbps and more downloading speed over its broadband services in Mumbai circle 

In July, 2009, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended that the Department of Telecom (DoT) should make it mandatory for Broadband speeds to be at least 2 mbps, but still its not done.