How often has it happened that you kept staring at your laptop screen, waiting for the buffer icon to disappear? How often has your boss accused you of being sluggish when its the office internet which functions like a sloth?
You’re not alone. India ranks 76th in terms of broadband internet speed.
While the rest of the country struggles to keep themselves awake while waiting for the internet to fire up, Chennai happens to be an exception as the city enjoys the highest broadband speed in the country.
According to a report titled ‘India’s Digital Divide: How Broadband Speed Splits The Nation’ by global Internet testing and analysis company Ookla, Chennai has the fastest broadband speed in the country with a ‘mean download speed over fixed broadband that is 57.7 percent faster than the entire country. The city enjoys a mean download speed of 32.67 Mbps and a mean upload speed of 26.15 Mbps.
Where do other Indian cities stand?
Shortly behind Chennai is the IT hub of India– Bengaluru with a mean download speed of 31.09 Mbps. Interestingly, four of the top five spots with the cities that offer highest broadband speed are occupied by cities from south India which include– Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Vishakhapatnam. The only other city in the coveted top five slot is Delhi with an average download speed of 23.57 Mbps.
Furthermore, the report states that the slowest of the cities analysed for Internet speed is Patna with a mean download speed of just 7.80 Mbps. This speed is 62.4 percent slower than the country’s average for mean download speed.
Broadband speed in India (Photo: Ookla grab)
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On the other hand, when it comes to the overall Internet connectivity across the country, Karnataka scored the top position with a mean download speed of 28.46 Mbps during February 2018. This number is 37.4 percent faster than the country as a whole. The second spot was bagged by Tamil Nadu with a mean download speed of 27.94 Mbps.
Where does India stand on a global scale?
While these statistics might paint a somewhat optimistic picture of the country, global statistics, however, tell a different tale. According to February 2018 report by Ookla, with an average download speed of 20.72 Mbps, India ranks 67th in the global broadband speed rankings.
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The top spot on the list was bagged by Singapore with an average download speed of 161.53 Mbps, which was followed by Iceland and Hong Kong (SAR) on the second and third spots with average download speeds of 157.73 Mbps and 129.64 Mbps respectively.
The condition was far worse in case of mobile Internet speed. With an average download speed of 9.01 Mbps, India bagged the 109th spot in the global rankings. The top spot was bagged by Norway, which was followed by Iceland and the Netherlands on the second and third spots respectively.
