Broadband For All – Perception And Reality

Broadband has become an absolute essential for people to participate in socio-economic activities. A decade ago there was a debate on digital divide between the ones who have internet and the ones who don’t. Today with over 60% of the global population using the internet, the focus is now towards the quality and speed. The economic shift caused by the broadband across the globe is a testament of broadband revolution. The ITU research revealed that in least developed and landlocked countries, an increase of 10% in mobile broadband penetration yields an increase of 2.5-2.8% in GDP per capita, whereas an increase of 10% in fixed line broadband The last ten years were phenomenal in terms of increased broadband penetration and subscriber base which showed almost 68% average annual growth rate over last ten years. Today we have a total broadband subscriber base of over 102 million with broadband penetration crossing 46%. The surge in subscriber base was witnessed right after the introduction of 3G services in 2014 when the subscribers grew by almost 350% in one year. The data usage also grew tremendously. The average annual growth in last 5 years was 95.5% and during penetration contributes to an increase of 2-2.3% to GDP per capita.