After much hee-haw and deliberations running into years, TRAI, which is the nodal agency for all things telecom, has finally redefined the minimum broadband speed in India. This means that now any service offering "broadband internet" will have to offer speed of up to 512kbps. This is double of 256kbps, which was mandated earlier. Yes, that is right. The jump is an impressive 100 per cent. Although it's another matter that compared to what rest of the world gets this is pathetic.

The 512kbps minimum broadband speed in a country like India that dreams of being a digital superpower is a joke that would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that poor quality of internet in the country would be a drag on it.

Also, in case you thought that 512kbps minimum broadband was some sort of improvement keep in mind that it applies only on the fixed internet connections. For the mobile data connections, there is still no guarantee of any reasonable quality to any consumer.

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In its directive issued on October 31, TRAI says that internet service providers will have to ensure that the speed of fixed broadband connections doesn't dip under 512kbps in any circumstance. "Broadband is a data connection that is able to support interactive services including Internet access and has the capability of the minimum download speed of 512kbps to an individual subscriber," notes TRAI in its directive. There is some more mumbo-jumbo about what internet service providers can do and what they can't but all of that is mere talk.

The surprising bit about the latest TRAI directive is that it is outcome of discussions that started year ago. In fact, by 2015 or 2016, government actually wanted 2mbps as the minimum broadband speed. ITU, a UN body that looks after all matters related to telecom, too defines broadband as a connection that has "transmission capacity faster than primary rate Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) at 1.5 or 2.0 Megabits per second (Mbits)". But sadly for India, which ought to be taking a lead in improving the sorry state of internet in country, that is just too fast. It still wants to be in the slow lane when it comes to internet.

Quarter after quarter, reports by Akamai show that India is among countries with worst internet access. There are countries like Sri Lanka that are better than India. China is miles ahead. The Europe, Far East Asian countries, even the US and Latin American countries, too are in a different league.

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Unfortunately, for TRAI it seems the pressure from telecom companies to not revise the minimum broadband speed to a more reasonable definition was too much. Indian telecom operators use this astounding -- and completely anti-consumer -- practice of Fair Use Policy where after a consumers has used some 10GB or 20GB of data the speed of that consumer is reduced to a crawl. Essentially, the consumer is blackmailed into buying "speed packs" to restore the speed for the rest of the month. Revising the minimum broadband speed to 2mbps or something better would put an end to this scam because then internet service providers will not be able to frustrate consumers with slow internet speed.

Unfortunately, it seems that TRAI doesn't see it like this. So, for now, the minimum broadband speed in India remains 512kbps and the country remains in the slow lane.