Financial Express : Broadband services to be minimum of 2Mbps Broadband services to be minimum of 2Mbps Rishi Raj Posted online: Tuesday , November 06, 2007 at 0235 hrs
New Delhi, Nov 5There's good news for Net-heads. All broadband connections will soon be upgraded to a minimum download speed of 2 Mbps, against the present speed of 256 Kbps. This follows a decision by the department of telecommunications (DoT) to change the definition of 'broadband' in accordance with international norms. At present, India defines broadband as speeds in excess of only 256 Kbps. Once the change in definition takes place, all Internet service providers (ISPs) and integrated telecom service providers like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications will have to do away with their 256-Kbps and 512-Kbps packages. State-owned BSNL and MTNL migrated to a minimum speed of 2 Mbps from the beginning of this calendar year at the instance of the former communications and IT minister, Dayanidhi Maran. With this kind of speed, bandwidth-intensive value-added services such as tele-medicine, tele-education, net conferencing, e-governance applications, broadband gaming, voice over IP (internet telephony), online music, streaming video and a multitude of other services will see substantial growth. Subscribers will also have a true Internet multimedia experience, particularly with streaming video. The DoT proposal outlining the change has, however, noted that the changed definition may initially have an adverse impact on achieving the target of 9 million subscribers in 2007, as wireless networks may have to reengineer in the changed spectrum requirement. But in the long run it would fulfil the goal of providing high-speed broadband service to rural and urban areas for development activities in education, health and governance, apart from entertainment. Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Broadband-services-to-be-minimum-of-2Mbps/236634/%20-%2019%20hours%20ago%20-# To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
