Telcos Say Minimum Speed Promise on Broadband Connections is Technically Infeasible

It seems that even though the consumers are paying a premium for their broadband service and shifting to higher speed fibre-based broadband plans to experience better services, it might still be hard for them to get any assurance about speed, says an ET Telecom report. The telecom operators are of the opinion that there can’t be a minimum bar set for the broadband speeds. This means that no matter what the consumers pay for a broadband connection, they still run the risk of encountering a snail-pace connection and what the companies are saying is that there is very little that subscribers can do to change this.

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Experts Agree to Telcos’ Opinion

Currently, the rule for mobile broadband set by the government says that the providers should provide 512 Kbps of speed. However, there can’t be any change to this rule as telecom companies, and experts are saying that setting a minimum speed is not technically possible, not only in India but also anywhere in the world. Director General of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents all major telcos of the country including Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, Rajan Matthews said, “In a point to multi-point mobile network, no network operator, in India or globally, can guarantee a certain minimum download speed.”

Matthews said that the actual speed that the consumers experience depends on a large number of factors including but not limited to coverage, network load, usage, location of the user in the cell, the application being used and also the device which they are using to access the internet. The thing to note is that the telecom operators aren’t the only one saying this, but third-party speed testing agencies like Ookla and Open Signal have also agreed to this stating that guaranteed data speeds are a tough thing to nail and it isn’t the case in India only, but even internationally as well.