DNA Money Edit: High-speed Net important for Digital India

High-speed broadband is vital to successfully execute 'Digital India', an ambitious programme of the government to connect the country. BharatNet, the programme to connect rural hinterlands via broadband, is already underway. The new digital communications policy aims to provide 'Broadband for All' by 2022. To achieve this, the government plans to revise the minimum speed of a broadband connection to over two megabytes per second (Mbps) immediately and then, upwards to 5 Mbps, from the current minimum speed of 512 kbps. Once implemented, this is bound to enhance the quality of services in terms of data speed and access.

The development comes at a time when India is moving fast to adopt next generation 5G technology, though the commercial launch is expected only in 2020. India wants to be at par with global countries for launching next generation 5G services which will have data speed in gigabytes. Of course, we have come a long way since 2011 when the broadband speed was last revised to 512 kbps from the earlier 256 kbps.

With exploding data consumption, the way ahead is providing internet through optical fibre and WiFi. A policy intervention is urgently needed as India move towards connecting its citizens through the Net. Out of over 1 billion mobile users, only 560 million are on the internet. Telecom companies will need to invest heavily in infrastructure upgrades to give users a seamless service.