Trai increases minimum broadband speed to 512kbps

NEW DELHI: Telecom sector regulator Trai has notified that the minimum broadband speed has been raised to 512 kilobytes per second (kbps) from the earlier 256kbps.

The amendment has been made to the Telecom Consumers Complaint Redressal Regulations, 2012 and the regulations will be called the Telecom Consumers Complaint Redressal (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2014, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in a notification.

Accordingly, the new definition of broadband is "a data connection that is able to support interactive services including internet access and has the capability of minimum download speed of 512kbps to an individual subscriber from the point of presence (POP) of the service provider intending to provide broadband service".

The regulations will come into force after publication in the official gazette, it added.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had revised the broadband speed in consonance of the National Telecom Policy 2012 and Trai recommendations, the regulator said.

The earlier minimum broadband speed of 256kbps was as per the Broadband Policy 2004.

According to National Telecom Policy 2012, the government aims to raise the broadband download speed of to 512kbps from 256kbps and subsequently to 2Mbps by 2015.

According to Trai data, total broadband subscribers in the country rose by 5.82% to 65.33 million at the end of May 2014 from 61.74 million at the end of April 2014.

While wired broadband subscribers stood at 14.95 million as of May this year, mobile device users (phones and dongles) were 49.97 million and the fixed wireless (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Point-to-Point, Radio and VSAT) subscribers stood at 0.41 million for the same period.