Why is hi-speed internet in India so costly?

well, i believe that the mantra for success of broadband in india is unbundling of the local loop...in other words the best thing that the govt can do to boost broadband penetration in this country is to open access to the copper lines of MTNL and BSNL to private playersJust imagine the cut throat competiton that would result if Tata, Airtel, Sify and MTNL/BSNL were to compete on the same lines..it would drive down prices in no time.That's how it happened in U.K. - Unbundling the local loop of British Telecom ended its monopoly over Broadband and drove prices down sharply.Laying down of new infrastructure i.e. digging and laying down copper cables in each city or even in a single big city is a capital and time intensive affair and often problematic even for big players like Reliance and Tata

i totally agree...but wonder if the sarkari babus will ever let that happen 🙁

Another factor that i thought cud be a cause for high rates is that most sites are hosted outside india.....so we are always using international bandwidth.....while in Us and user uses a lot of national bandwidth

Yup, Everything we access is nearly outside India! As far as internet is concerned, there are two classes of people (Like Abhishek Bachchan says In Bunty aur Babli), One, who live in the US and get all services, and The other, who dont Live in US and Regret it!🙂

OK, agreed.What do you think could be done to bring down prices(apart from opening up competiton to MTNL and BSNL, which area heavily guarded)?Any ideas?Amogh

from what i know, we cannot do anything. government has to realise that they have to do it for us.

Fact that the websites are located outside India doesn't justify expensive broadband. HongKong, Japan, Korea don't host all the websites yet broadband is dirt cheap there.We cant do anything much..just hope that Mr. Manmohan and company realise that before setting up a Knowledge Commission, they first have to free up the most important tool of knowledge dissemination in the present era.

Yup! Thats coz theres no infrastructure here! No Company dug up and put fibres just coz they'll need it the future! No company ever bought extra Bandwidth just so that they could offer cheaper internet! they all did it only for Profits! And the Government Always had bandwidth prices high, not subidising them! How would we get Internet like in Honk Kong, Korea, etc?Now that Fibres are being layed everywhere, I think we have a reason to look upto a bright Future!

give it 5-10 years then it could be different