These are just some of the advertisements for a broadband connection, designed to lure us on to the information superhighway. But what is delivered is often far from ideal, making customers rue the day they logged onto the net. No wonder India’s base of 50 million internet subscribers spends the lowest time online — just 11 hours a month. That’s just half the global average of 22.4 hours a month.

Users like Shakuntala Sarkar, head of corporate communications at Spencer’s Retail, says: “We use a Reliance broadband plan at work, but the speed we get is very bad. The company claims to give up to 153.6 Kbps (Kilo-bits, NOT Bytes; eight bits make a Byte). But we definitely don’t get the promised speeds.”

This, according to her, slows exchange of emails and files. “Any file or mail attachment of above 1MB (1 MegaByte, or 1,024 KiloBytes) is difficult to download,” she adds.

In response, Gaurav Wahi, who heads corporate communications at Reliance Communications, points out: “Internet speeds depend on how many users are on a particular plan. If what can be shared between 30 users is being shared by 300, the speed (on that network) will obviously be less.”

Slow internet speeds have naturally affected web-based entertainment consumption patterns among consumers. According to data from Comscore, the market research firm that provides data and services to several large Internet companies, Indian users spend an average 1.3 hours in a month on online entertainment sites.

A total disconnect
Part of the problem is caused due to the dismal awareness about internet speed terminologies. Customers see ads for 1Mbps lines and expect to have a service that will give them 1MBps. There’s a difference: 1Mbps translates into 1 Megabit per second, not the latter 1 MegaByte. Since eight bits make a Byte, the actual speed on such a connection can be determined by dividing 1Mbps, or 1,024Kbps (1Mb=1,024Kb) by eight. So, the actual speed is a very unexciting 128KBps. And that’s only the maximum possible speed. Average speeds almost never get there. While Internet Service Providers (ISPs) hardly publicise these differences, their agents on the ground are left to explain the details.

This sorry situation further deteriorates in the dial-up market, which is still thriving in the country on inadequate infrastructure. Many dial-up surfers believe they are surfing the web at 56 Kbps. In reality, most end up with dismal connection speeds, sometimes even as low as 15 Kbps (divide these figures by eight and dial-up users will know why they are restricted to speeds of just a few KiloBytes). Moreover, if many users in one geographical area download large files, this also slows down internet speeds, especially during peak hours (daytime).

It’s experiences such as these that have limited upgrades to a broadband service, which even otherwise proves to be just slightly better at most places in India. The country has less than 10 million broadband subscribers today. If technology and market research firm Forrester Research is to be believed, India will be the third-largest internet market by 2013 — with China and the US taking the first two spots, respectively. But it sure seems like an unhurried haul.

Delhi-based Mitali Banerjee, a content writer, is a broadband user. She assumed Airtel’s broadband service would be better and opted for Airtel’s Freedom Broadband plan that promised connection speeds of 1 Mbps at a monthly rental of Rs 1,699.

“I am yet to see a download speed of even 512 Kbps on my so-called broadband connection even as I continue to pay for a 1-Mbps speed,” complains Banerjee, who is now looking for a new internet connection.

Executives at Airtel declined to comment on the issue.
 

Not ‘broad’ enough
Recently, MTNL announced a new broadband plan at just Rs 49 per month, but sceptics like Pijush Chowdhury, a retired engineer who uses the internet to keep in touch with his children abroad, are not impressed. “I was a subscriber of BSNL’s Home 500 plan, which promised me speeds of between 256 Kbps and 2 Mbps. But I discontinued the plan because of very sluggish speeds. I would much rather speak to my children on phone,” says a disgruntled Chowdhury.

Poor internet speed is a nationwide issue, claims a report from Akamai, a company which handles several billions of web interactions. Many Indian states managed average speeds of just 768 Kbps. That’s not even half the global average connection speed of 1.7 Mbps.

Then there are other hang-ups. For independent software developers like Anurag Kar, who opted for BSNL’s Rs 125 monthly-rental broadband plan, the 150-MB limit for data transfer (you have to pay extra beyond that) came as a rude shock.

“The data transfer ceiling is for all data that get downloaded onto or uploaded from your computer. So, it includes text, pictures, graphics, sounds, flash clips, etc — these automatically get downloaded on to your computer when you just open a web page,” he explains. For example, when you view the web page www.google.co.in, 7-9 KB of data automatically gets downloaded in the background. “For every page that you visit while surfing,” he laments, “similar data downloads occur just while opening the web page and this gets accounted for in the monthly bill.”

It is widely believed that CDMA operators like Tata Indicom and Reliance are better positioned to provide high-speed data services over the wireless medium as their networks support 2.5G speeds.

Mridula Mundale of Tiwari Industries says: “I pay Rs 1,000 per month for the Tata Photon data card service and get speeds of up to 2 Mbps — that is quite satisfactory for my personal use.” Mundale recently switched to the Tata Photon connection.

For most others, options are limited.