India’s Trai sets 512kbps broadband speed minimum

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has instructed the market’s fixed line operators to guarantee a minimum download speed of 512kbps at all times.

In a new directive, Trai set the minimum required speed to be considered broadband at 512kbs and ordered the nation’s operators not to reduce their speeds below this even when throttling customers for excess data use.

ISPs as well as mobile broadband subscribers have also been told to provide information on data usage limits, connection speeds and capped speeds in any advertisements published in any media covering broadband plans.

New and existing subscribers must also be informed of this information over email or SMS.

Finally, operators will need to provide alerts to customers via these channels when their data usage reaches 50%, 90% and 100% of their allocation, and to maintain a portal or website to allow users to access their usage at any time.

Operators including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Sistema Shyam Teleservices had urged the regulator to allow throttling to speeds of just 64kbps to prevent misuse of fixed broadband services. With the directive this request has now been rebuffed.

But on the other hand, the government had previously considered setting 2Mbps rather than 512kbps as the minimum speed.