Tags: India, Broadband, Broadband Access
Publication: ZDNet.com
Publication Date: 10/31/2012

The Indian government is trying to bolster broadband connectivity access to even the most rural areas of the country Image credit: The Opoponax

India is planning to exponentially increase the reach of broadband across the whole country from 20 million users to 600 million in just eight years. The government wants to lead the efforts by investing the equivalent of $3.7 billion to strengthen the network and bolster the country’s digitalization as well as the use of cloud-based services and convergence to reach remote areas of the billion-people country.

In spite of this investment, the Indian government is expecting service providers to take the lead on this effort and provide last-mile connectivity. The goal is to improve healthcare, education and entertainment services at a lower cost. But before this can happen, some challenges need to be overcome, such as regulation of carriage fees, piracy and protection of intellectual property rights.

Even though efforts started in 2011 to increase connectivity throughout India, the country still has a long way to go to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of broadband. According to an Akamai report published in October, India and Indonesia had the lowest adoption rates for broadband internet.

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