 "India ranked lowly 130 in Ookla's average Internet download speed index")
While recent reports have indicated that the average Internet speed in India has been picking up, the latest numbers from Ookla’s Net Index shows that it still lags behind smaller nations like Bhutan, Cambodia, Nepal, Nigeria, Laos and Zimbabwe in terms of Internet download speeds. The company, while showing the average Index data, says that the results were obtained by analysing test results from October 27, 2013 to November 25 of the same year.
The numbers show that India is currently ranked at the 130th position with an average download speed of 4.18Mbps. The survey collected results from 9,346,234 unique IPs, and 2,803147 results have been used for the current Index out of a total number of 43,035,182 tests conducted. This places the country lower down the chain when compared to the average download speed in Nigeria, standing at 5.14Mbps or Nepal, which stands at 4.92Mbps. In contrast, countries like Cambodia, Laos and Bhutan have average download speeds of 4.66Mbps, 4.73Mbps and 4.41Mbps respectively. Zimbabwe boasts a slight higher average of 4.20Mbps.
Still have a long way to go
The top five positions in terms of download speeds went to Hong Kong at 71.22Mbps, Singapore at 52.75Mbps, Romania at 50.26Mbps, South Korea at 47.20Mbps and Sweden at 42.35Mbps. The US ranked 31 with an average download speed of 20.74Mbps while the global average was 16.20Mbps. Countries like Afghanistan, Malawi, Benin and Gambia ranked at the bottom of the Index with average download speeds of 1.13Mbps, 1.16 Mbps, 1.21Mbps, 1.36Mbps and 1.46 Mbps respectively.
In terms of upload speeds, India fared a little better, ranking at 93rd position with an average upload speed of 2.91Mbps. Hong Kong recorded the highest average download speed at 58.99Mbps, followed by South Korea at 40.06Mbps, Singapore at 37.14Mbps, Macau at 36.48Mbps and Andorra at 35.98Mbps. The US recorded an average upload speed of 6.30Mbps while the global average stood at 7.08Mbps. The company has said that the data for this was based on millions of recent test results from Speedtest.net.
The Index also tabulated the value index at which average Internet speeds are offered i.e. how much they cost per Mbps. India ranked 55th in terms of cost per Mbps, standing at $11.27 (Rs 700 approx) but ranked 61st when taking into account the GDP per capita. The data was tabulated taking into account the relative cost of broadband, the relative cost per Mbps, the actual cost per Mbps and the cost with respect to IP addresses. The Index drew from 55,914 surveys to arrive at this result. The average cost per Mbps globally was pegged at $7.04 (Rs 430 approx).
While the Internet penetration in India has only managed to hit 16 percent of the total population, a recent report found that the country would outstrip the US in 2014 to become the second largest Internet population in the world. While the number is expected to hit 213 million by the end of this year, by June 2014, India is expected to have 243 million Internet users. In comparison, the US currently accounts for 207 million Internet users. China currently leads the race, though, accounting for more than 300 million Internet users.
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