Higher broadband users, poor infra dents download speed in city: Report

Mumbai: Higher broadband subscription along with the lack of enough bandwidth to handle volumes has considerably slowed down the average internet download speed in Mumbai. According to a recent report released by Ookla, the company behind Speedtest, the average internet download speed over the fixed broadband service in Mumbai has fallen to 17.10 Mbps in February 2018, which is well below the national average speed of 20.72 Mbps.

“The infrastructure has not kept pace with the growth in subscriber base. There are more broadband users in Mumbai as compared to other cities. When more users get connected to the same bandwidth, the average speed will get distributed among them resulting in lower download speed,” said Neil Shah, research director, devices and ecosystems at Counterpoint Research. 

While congestion in services requires higher investment in infrastructure, Mr Shah said Mumbai being an island city faces several challenges. “It’s really difficult to achieve the last mile connectivity by laying underground fibre optic cables in a busy and congested city like Mumbai,” he added.   

As per the data available with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the total number of broadband subscribers across India increased from 300.84 million at the end of June 2017 to 324.89 million at the end of September 2017. 

Out of which wired broadband subscribers are 18.04 million, and wireless broadband subscribers are 306.86 million.

Top five service areas in respect of broadband subscriptions are Maharashtra (27.90 million), Tamil Nadu (26.21 million), Andhra Pradesh (25.10 million), Karnataka (23.58 million) and Delhi (23.45 million).