India "below today's application threshold" in net services

Nevada (US), Oct 19 (ANI): A new study has characterized India "below today's application threshold" in quality and penetration of net services.

This study, conducted by the University of Oxford (UK) and University of Oviedo (Spain) and sponsored by Cisco, listed South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Iceland, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Singapore, Malta, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Sweden, and Denmark as top ranking Broadband leaders, with South Korea at number one position followed by Hong Kong.

Renowned Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed has stressed that India needed to have a clear digital strategy. It urgently should invest in improving broadband quality if it wanted to build and capture leadership position in technology.

The study points out that 14 countries have already prepared for the Internet "applications of tomorrow"; 38 countries have conquered the digital quality divide; and a smart and connected home is commanding over 20 Mbps and a consumption of 500 GB per month.

South Korea, which tops the broadband leadership ranking for the second year in a row, has an average download throughput of 33.5 Mbps, average upload throughput of 17 Mbps, and average latency of 47ms; besides 100 percent broadband penetration. Hong Kong, Iceland, South Korea, Luxemburg and Malta lead in broadband penetration with take-up reaching 100% of households. Seoul tops the list of 239 cities looked at with the highest broadband quality (scoring 97 out of 100). Japan stands out as having the most cities with the highest broadband quality in the world; with Nagoya, Yokohama and Osaka rated second, third and fourth respectively. Sweden, Denmark, USA, and Spain are the world leaders in mobile broadband quality.

It says that "basic digital homes", which mainly use the web for simple-quality requirement applications such as web browsing, instant messaging and social networking, consume about 20 GB per month; while "smart and connected households", which would use the web for high definition video communication, high definition entertainment, tele-education or telemedicine, home security and others, can easily consume 500 GB per month and require an assured bandwidth of 18 Mbps.

Zed, who is Chairperson of Indo-American Leadership Confederation, further said although India did have the capacity to be a global technology leader but it still did not even figure in the top 30 broadband leadership countries of the world out of the total 72 looked at by this study on broadband quality.

Rajan Zed stressed that India should prepare itself for "Internet applications of tomorrow", such as high definition Internet TV and high quality video communications services (consumer telepresence) which are expected to become mainstream in just a few years time, according to this study.

Zed pointed out that India needed to conquer its digital quality divide across the urban and rural areas as broadband quality and smart connected communities would impact economy. Investments in infrastructure were needed and India should aim at providing access to all households in the near future.

India should explore the many benefits which came with Internet applications like economic development and better quality of life, Rajan Zed added. (ANI)