What is the minimum Broadband speed ?

B

broadband_user

Newbie
Messages
48
Location
NA
ISP
BSNL
As per TRAI website TRAI :::::::

An ‘always-on' data connection that is able to support interactive services including Internet access and has the capability of the minimum download speed of 256 kilo bits per second (kbps) to an individual subscriber from the Point Of Presence (POP) of the service provider intending to provide Broadband service where multiple such individual Broadband connections are aggregated and the subscriber is able to access these interactive services including the Internet through this POP.

This means that it is enough if "capability of 256 kbps is there" but does not say how much minimum speed should be there at a given time ??! Can someone tell me does TRAI or anyone say that a minimum speed of so much should be provided for a broadband?
 
As per TRAI website TRAI :::::::

An ‘always-on' data connection that is able to support interactive services including Internet access and has the capability of the minimum download speed of 256 kilo bits per second (kbps) to an individual subscriber from the Point Of Presence (POP) of the service provider intending to provide Broadband service where multiple such individual Broadband connections are aggregated and the subscriber is able to access these interactive services including the Internet through this POP.

This means that it is enough if "capability of 256 kbps is there" but does not say how much minimum speed should be there at a given time ??! Can someone tell me does TRAI or anyone say that a minimum speed of so much should be provided for a broadband?

In India, the capability of up to 256kbit/s between the user and the ISP's closest point of presence is all that is required to legally call the product broadband. Unfortunately, this is met in most cases by even the shoddiest wiring.

ISPs are allowed to have up to 50 customers per 1Mbit/s of upstream bandwidth, which if measured as a constant flow-rate is just 20kbit/s. Most don't have 50:1: Airtel states that they have 17:1, BSNL and MTNL both state about 22:1.

In theory, for every 1 thousand megabits (1 Gbit/s) of bandwidth to the outside world, Airtel would have about 17,000 customers, while MTNL/BSNL would have about 22,000 - assuming every one of those customers had 1Mbit/s flat-rate, of course. The metrics in real life are obviously much different because ISPs have plans ranging from 256kbit/s or less to 2 or 4 Mbit/s.

This is known commonly as the contention ratio, and where the contention ratio starts applying depends on what type of connection you have, and one must keep in mind that contention *can* only really apply to "unlimited" plans, and in addition, the mathematics to work out contention for a DSL connection are not the same as working them out for a Cable connection or in our case, FTTH. TRAI’s Broadband QoS Guidelines: Reveal Contention Ratio - MediaNama

Basically, if everyone is downloading all at once, your speeds are gonna be awful, irrespective of your ISP, but at the same time, the regulations suggest (this is more a policy of the wholesale providers and of NIXI) that once an ISP reaches a saturation point of about 84%, the network is considered to be congested and they should buy more capacity.

On our network, we anticipate that the *average* customer will download about 150GB per month, and so we allocate bandwidth and formulate our pricing accordingly - but in real life, a certain % will be heavy downloaders, a certain % will be normal and a certain % will be light.
 
Thank for the answer but it does involve a bit of technicality.So as far as I understand it is like this...Suppose you have got a road which is 5 metres wide. It is assumed to be enough during normal traffic. However at different times of the day depending upon the number of vehicles on the road, you can drive fast or drive very slow. During the normal 4-6 p.m. when traffic is high we will have to drive very slow and on a rainy day evening like in Bangalore, you may not be able to move more than 1 km in 15 mins !Similarly if very less people are using, the speed will be high and when low number of users are using, the speed will be more. However if more number of people are simultaneously watching youtube or downloading video, then it would be like how the road would be if all vehicle users come out on road on trucks instead of their two-wheelers, cars, auto, etc.If a road (route) is normally clogged one, the best option for us would be to find a new route, the same way if frequently the internet connection goes damn slow, the best option would be to change the service provider until of course an express way is created by the current provider! 😀
 
broadband just means bandwidth provided at a broader channel compared to the single or double channels that phones line are operated on.It has no speed in general.every country defined their own seed,in india it is known as 256kbps
 
Thank for the answer but it does involve a bit of technicality.

So as far as I understand it is like this...

Suppose you have got a road which is 5 metres wide. It is assumed to be enough during normal traffic. However at different times of the day depending upon the number of vehicles on the road, you can drive fast or drive very slow. During the normal 4-6 p.m. when traffic is high we will have to drive very slow and on a rainy day evening like in Bangalore, you may not be able to move more than 1 km in 15 mins !

Similarly if very less people are using, the speed will be high and when low number of users are using, the speed will be more. However if more number of people are simultaneously watching youtube or downloading video, then it would be like how the road would be if all vehicle users come out on road on trucks instead of their two-wheelers, cars, auto, etc.

If a road (route) is normally clogged one, the best option for us would be to find a new route, the same way if frequently the internet connection goes damn slow, the best option would be to change the service provider until of course an express way is created by the current provider! 😀

That's one way of putting it to "laymans terms"... have you been reading the non-technical version of our presentations? (we use an example of the autobahn, a "super highway", versus a small winding mountain road) 😀
 

Top