Report: State of Internet Connectivity in India [Decline in Average Connection Speed]

Akamai’s report on the State of the Internet reveals some pretty interesting facts about the penetration, adoption and evolution of internet services in world. Internet adoption and usage in a country is an important statistic to gauge the state of ICT ( Information and Communication Technology in a country ). While China, India’s no. 1 competitor in terms of growing markets is ranked higher on most of the scales used in the report, the statistics for India are not so impressive. Here’s a look at what the study has concluded about the state of the internet in India and how it compares with China.

Average Measured Connection Speed

India ranks 143 globally with an average connectivity speed of 0.8 Mbps in Q3 of 2010. India’s connectivity speeds took a hit with an overall decline and reflects in the negative QoQ ( quarter on quarter ) change. India’s QoQ change of Internet speed is -6.9%. The year on year change ( this quarter compared to this quarter last year) also took a downturn showing the decline in average connectivity speeds in India. The YoY change is recorded at -9.1%.

China comparatively did better with the QoQ change negative but relatively smaller compared to India. China is ranked globally at 129. the QoQ change was -1.5% but the YoY change was 9.3%.

Average peak connection speed is average of the maximum measured speed at city level. India ranks 135 globally in terms of global average peak connection speed globally. The average peak connection speed measured in India was 5.1 Mbps in Q4 of ‘10. While the QoQ was -0.4%, the YoY change was calculated as 13%.

China’s average peak connection speed was measured at 3.1Mbps. The YoY change for China is a whopping 48%.

India ranks 80th globally for high broadband connectivity with 0.4% connections measured to have a speed in excess of 5Mbps. India’s comparison to itself in its previous quarter and previous year suggest a big decline in high broadband connectivity. The QoQ change is calculated at -18% and the YoY is -30%.

China ranks 85th worldwide and the QoQ was -14% while the YoY change was 13%.

Japan ranks 1st globally when it comes to high broadband connectivity.

Broadband connectivity measures the increase in number of broadband connections. India ranks 129th in the report globally. The adoption of broadband internet has been rather disappointing. India has only 4.5% internet connections above 2Mbps. The QoQ change and YoY change too were unimpressive at -17% and -24% respectively.

Slow adoption of broadband services in India will hamper businesses that depend on high internet broadband consumption , like digital media providers and such.

China however did well with 8% internet connections measured over 2Mbps. The QoQ change was calculated at 5% and the YoY change an impressive 36%.

India has a high rate of narrowband consumption according to the report. India ranks 43 globally with 35% of its internet connections below 256Kbps. the QoQ change was calculated at 5.9% while the YoY change, a strong 39%. This suggests that although the internet connectivity speeds are not high, internet adoption is growing.

China can boast that only about 9.6% of its connection speeds are below 256Kbps.

While the report focuses on Internet connectivity, it does not provide any stats regarding India’s mobile Internet connectivity. India’s mobile connectivity is growing faster than any other country in the world and is expected to continue this growth trend. The recent roll out of 3G services in the country will be complete by the end of Q3 of 2011, so expect upward movement in this list.

This report (link) should look very different next year if the ISP in India provide mobile broadband services at affordable price.

What’s your opinion?

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News Roundup: Airtel Money Launched in Chennai, Sify Launches Internet Radio

Airtel earlier launched Airtel Money in Gurgaon and the service is now expanded to Chennai.

Aimed at offering customers with an efficient alternative to cash transactions, airtel money will provide airtel customers across the country with a convenient and secure way of making payments through the ubiquitous mobile platform.

Load cash: Load cash on your airtel mobile by visiting your nearest airtel retail outlet [Minimum is Rs. 10, Maximum is Rs. 5,000 and monthly limit stands at Rs. 50, 000]. Pay bills & recharge: You will be able to use this cash in your mobile for making bill payments (electricity, gas, financial services, etc.) and recharge – Limits same as above. Shop & make payments: Instead of cash, pay over-the-counter merchants such as your nearest kirana store, chemist, etc using your mobile phone. You can even sit at home and pay for services like booking movie tickets online

Airtel had recently announced a JV with State Bank of India to provide banking and financial services to millions of unbanked Indians using the mobile platform. With this launch of airtel money – airtel now offers a complete suite of financial products on mobile devices for the banked as well as unbanked population of the country.

Airtel in Chennai has partnered with around 750 prominent merchants, including Oriental Cuisines (which runs Benjarong, Zara, Cascade and French Loaf restaurants), Univercell, Poorvika, Inox, Bharti AXA and LIC.

[Read: How to Use Airtel Money]

Sify, in partnership with Radio City 91.1 FM, has launched Sify Radio. This tie-up will enable visitors to Sify.com to enjoy Bollywood, Indi-Pop and other genres of music 24×7. The content broadcast on Radio on Sify will be different from the terrestrial programming of Radio City 91.1 FM. Some of the special features of Radio on Sify are:

– Uninterrupted streaming: Visitors can listen to their favourite songs without any buffering at an internet speed as low as even 128 Kbps.
– Popular RJ’s: Visitors/audience can select songs from a given list and dedicate it to friends/loved ones. The RJ will announce the dedications during particular shows.
– Facebook apps: Users can post their comments/dedications via any mail id or their Facebook account. Comments/dedications will also be posted to their Facebook walls.
– Show Time: Show Time features the daywise list of all the shows. [Source]

India and the World Bank on Tuesday signed a loan agreement worth $150 million for the e-delivery of public services development policy under the National e-governance plan (NeGP). NeGP is a flagship e-governance initiative of the Central Government aimed at transforming the service delivery system across the country [via].

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OS X Freeware of the Day: DTV Free Internet TV Program

DTV is an open source program for easily watching and subscribing to video programs that can be downloaded freely over the Internet. The program uses RSS enclosure technology, which most people know as "podcasts," but focuses only on those podcasts that provide video. The program provides a very intuitive interface for viewing the videos available from a particular source, and manages the videos once they are downloaded.

DTV is in rapid development and each new release provides more stability and better features than the next. For the moment, DTV is only available for OS X (how often does that happen?) but is in development for all your Windoze friends.

Using DTV is as simple as opening the program to see the main interface, with various channels and a channel guide on the left. Once clicked, any of these options will show you a list of programs on the right.

You have the ability to download any video of your choosing with a single click. Once downloaded, the video will appear as such both in the channel listing and in your "My Collection" section, which contains all of the videos you've downloaded.

DTV also serves as it's own video player, with standard playing controls you can use to fast forward, pause, and stop your videos.

DTV can be downloaded for free here.