India has the world’s second largest internet user base, still the country ranks at 76th in fixed broadband and 109th for mobile internet speeds. India’s average download speed for fixed broadband is just 18.80 mbps while the global average download speed is 42.71 mbps. But this is going to be better said Dr K Sivan, chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
At the ninth convocation of Gitam (deemed to be university), Dr K Sivan confirmed that India will enjoy more than 100Gbps high speed connectivity across the country by early next year. ISRO has already launched GSAT-19; will launch GSAT-11 and GSAT-29 this year and GSAT-20 early next year. All these are high throughput satellites for offering high bandwidth connectivity across the country and will help bridge the digital divide. Together, they have capability of offering over 100 Gbps connectivity.
Unlike traditional satellites that use a broad single beam, these use multiple narrow spot beams. The narrower the beam more is the power. They will also reuse “beams” (signals) several times in order to cover the entire country.
Reliance Jio has already connected a large number of Indian population to Internet and helped millions of people come online for the first time. The company has already launched its broadband that is being rolled out across the country slowly. So, other broadband companies are also trying to improve their services and increase data speed of their plans to attract customers. New satellites will be game changer because we only have up to 1Gbps of fixed broadband plan and that too is limited to 2-3 cities.
It is worth to note that Elon Musk-founded US space company Space X is also working to build a satellite-based internet network for offering low-cost Internet across the globe. The company had already launched two experimental internet-based satellites Microsat-2a and Microsat-2b.
