Broadband penetration in India’s rural areas continues to be quite low at 29.1% against national average of 51% with 687 million subscribers as of March 2020, according to a new report by Deloitte titled “Broadband for inclusive development—social, economic, and business.” Also noteworthy, fixed broadband penetration in India.

“Broadband penetration has grown at an impressive CAGR of 35% in India over the past three years (2017-2020). However, existing levels of broadband penetration in rural areas (29.1% penetration) and fixed broadband penetration (7.5% of Indian households) across the country offer significant opportunities for growth,” the report said.

Sathish Gopalaiah, Partner and Telecom Sector Leader Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP said, “This report briefly highlights the state of broadband in our country, how critical and transformative broadband can be for us, the key challenges holding back its growth potential, and certain key interventions that can be made through government policies, government spending, impetus to R&D and product development, and effective on-ground implementation of large initiatives.”

Gopalaiah said the country has witnessed significant progress in broadband in the last three years, primarily on the back of smartphone growth and low data prices.  “In the next innings, broadband penetration in rural areas and mass adoption of fixed broadband hold the anchor to continue and accelerate this growth trajectory,” he added.

The Deloitte report also cited statistics from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) that an increase of 10 percent in fixed broadband penetration yields an increase of 0.8 percent in GDP, and an increase of 10 percent in mobile broadband penetration yields an increase of 1.5 percent in GDP.

According to Deloitte, key challenges holding back the potential growth and mass adoption of broadband in India are right of way issues, cost of infrastructure deployment, levels of digital literacy, and access to affordable devices.

                                                       Photo Credit:  Mint

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Harnessing the full power of broadband is a multi-stage process that would involve availability of stable and high-speed broadband connectivity; accessibility to not only internet but affordable devices such as computers and mobiles; and usability (digital skills and applications/websites for users to rely on, that too, in the relevant vernacular languages).

While India has made significant development in broadband speeds over the years, “there is a large scope for growth in speeds” to enable further growth of technology platforms, social development programmes, businesses, and economic growth.

“As identified by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) significant improvements can be achieved in broadband speeds in the country. An important step is to pursue increasing the minimum broadband speed from 512 kbps to 2 mbps,” it said.

“Significant increase in demand for fixed broadband is estimated to continue, as a result of the pandemic, with extension in work-from-home for most corporates and permanent changes in digital behavior of people in the new normal.  The broadband penetration has positive correlation with GDP growth and employment. According to a World Bank report, a 10 per cent increase in broadband penetration levels in developing countries is estimated to lead to 1.38 per cent GDP growth,” the report stated.

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The cloud computing market in India has almost doubled from US$2.5 billion in 2018 to US$4.5 billion in 2020 and is set to grow to approximately US$7 billion by 2023.  Meanwhile, “IoT connected devices in the Indian market have grown from only 60 million in 2016 to an estimated 1.9 billion in 2020. This growth is expected to continue for both consumer and industrial IoT with multiple sectors adopting IoT,” the report said.

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References:

https://in.news.yahoo.com/covid-19-pandemic-accelerated-pace-082101954.html