Twenty years ago, 56.6 Kbps was the standard connection speed through telephone lines in India, and now 4G LTE speeds and fixed broadband lines ensures a national average speed of 4.1 Mbps, according to Akamai¡¯s State Of The Internet report -- at least 100 times faster than the mid-90s, if not more. And the party seems to have just begun¡
There¡¯s no doubt that smartphones are leading the connectivity charge, ensuring cellular broadband speeds ramp up with increasingly quality conscious Indian customers not willing to settle with mediocre service. Here¡¯s why now is a great time to be an Internet and cellular data user in the country.
Reliance Jio¡¯s introduction in the market, when it launched its 4G VoLTE service in September 2016 with free data till March 2017, has shaken up the telecom sector. This ensured the likes of Vodafone, Airtel, and Idea also matched up to Reliance Jio¡¯s new cellular normal, cutting data rates across the board just to keep up.
With cost per 1GB of data at Rs 66, Reliance Jio offers the most value for money data plan in the country at the moment -- and it¡¯s all 4G. It¡¯s closely followed by the likes of Vodafone (Rs 99 per 1GB of 4G+3G), Airtel (Rs 85 per 1GB of 4G) and Idea (Rs 99 per 1GB of 4G) which have slashed their existing data rates by more than half of what they used to be, and almost all of them also offer additional free data packs for post-paid plans over a certain amount.
All of this, frankly, is great news for the Indian customer who¡¯s spoilt for choices. With Reliance Jio considering to extend its free 4G data service (at a nominal cost of Rs 100 per month) till June 2017, it¡¯ll be interesting to see how the competing telcos offer additional price cuts or more data in their existing plans.
Exactly a year after flagging off its ambitious plan to bring free Wi-Fi at 400 railway stations in the country, Google last month finished offering free high-speed RailTel (RailWire) Wi-Fi at the 100th railway station in the country -- at Ooty Railway Station.
Through all the 100 railway stations where Google free Wi-Fi is live right now, it¡¯s helping over 1 crore passengers stream HD videos, and not just check their emails and messaging apps.
Facebook Express Wi-Fi, which is still part of the social media giant¡¯s highly controversial Internet.org offering, this is a fresh attempt by Mark Zuckerberg¡¯s company to help expand Internet connectivity to some of the most underserved locations in the world.
Signalling the live deployment of Express Wi-Fi on Facebook¡¯s Internet.org page, the company explains how it¡¯s ¡°working with carriers, internet service providers, and local entrepreneurs¡± to help widen the Internet footprint in rural India.
According to a report from App Annie, Indians downloaded over 6.2 billion apps through Google Play on their Android phones in 2016 alone, a significant jump from 3.6 billion app downloads reported in 2015. Not surprising, as 97% of India¡¯s over 220 million smartphone users have Android smartphones.
Just behind China, India is the second-largest smartphone market in the world and ahead of the US, too, so it makes sense that Indians rank at #1 in the world when it comes to Android apps download -- but we¡¯re also ahead of China, which is quite crazy and just goes to show how obsessed we all are with our respective Android smartphones.
The top three apps downloaded by Indians were Facebook, WhatsApp and UC Browser, whereas Candy Crush, Subway Surfers and Temple Run 2 were the top three Android games downloaded in India throughout 2016.
You can actually do more than just exchange text messages through Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger -- even these messaging services have kept face with the breaking down of barriers to access cellular data by incorporating features like video chats and sharing video attachments, both of which tax data much heavily than mere text.
Hotstar is even advertising Amazon video within its app
Even the launch of video-on-demand streaming services like Netflix, Hotstar Premium and Amazon Prime Video last year -- even the quick rise of live TV smartphone app, Ditto.tv -- is a testimony to the fact that Indians¡¯ appetite for all things data is on an exponential rise.
Oh, what a time to be alive and data hungry!