Internet much more affordable now, but Indians still pay too much for speeds they get, says study

Study by Netherlands-based firm Surfshark, aiming to 'map internet price inequality', ranks India 44th out of 117 countries, above neighbours like Pakistan, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka.

Representational image of a white-collar worker using mobile and internet connections | Pixabay

New Delhi: Until the start of the 21st century, Ajay Data, a Jaipur-based entrepreneur, used to spend crores to lease an internet connection that he then used to provide services to retail consumers. Today, the situation has improved in terms of affordability, but Indians are still overpaying for the internet speeds they get, a new study has found.

The study of 117 countries conducted by Surfshark, a Netherlands-based cybersecurity services and Virtual Private Network (VPN) provider, to “map internet price inequality”  ranked India at 44. However, India ranked higher than its neighbours Pakistan (ranked 102), Bangladesh (83), Nepal (77), and Sri Lanka (96). The firm released its detailed findings on a blog on 20 January.  

To illustrate the global digital divide,Surfshark created the Internet Value Index (IVi) by dividing the speed of fixed broadband and mobile internet by affordability to find out how many people globally overpay for their connections. 

The firm says the index ranges from 0 to 1, and countries and regions with a value above the global average of 0.0729 are classified as having “fair internet prices” while those with lower values are overpaying. 

Notably, India has an internet value index of 0.0542. This puts it around 26 per cent lower than the global average, but it’s “at first place in southern Asia”, says the press note released by the firm.

The index: India & its neighbours

The press note shared on 31 January quotes Surshark lead researcher Agneska Sablovskaja as saying, “Internet Value index offers to look at internet connection from a practical perspective — whether we get what we pay for. Even economically affluent countries with relatively fast internet can overpay compared to others worldwide… However, some countries may have slower internet but also pay a considerably lower price, which is then considered fair.”

The higher the rank, the better the internet service customers get for the money they pay.

The study finds that globally, only 40 per cent people of get their internet at fair prices, while the rest “overpay for what they get — that’s almost 5 billion people,” the firm adds in its press note.

“People living in countries with an Internet Value index above the global average of 0.0729 are classed as having fair internet prices. In contrast, countries below the average are considered to have overpriced internet,” reads the blog where the firm released its findings.

The study finds that Israel had the highest overall internet value index (0.6630) — over nine times higher than the global average. Singapore (0.6186) and Denmark (0.4816) were ranked second and third respectively. Meanwhile, war-torn Yemen ranked the lowest with an index value of 0.0004.

The rankings also take into account factors that affect internet quality and affordability in a given country, such as how many hours a person must work to afford fixed broadband and mobile internet, as well as the median download speeds for both types of connection. 

According to the study, India’s average hourly wage is $3.60 (Rs 295.48), while the median speeds for fixed and mobile internet are 47.8 Mbps and 13.9 Mbps respectively. The average monthly bill for a fixed broadband package in India comes to $15.60, while a 1GB mobile broadband costs $0.20.

India’s internet affordability

For people like Data — the managing director of Jaipur-based Data Group of Industries, who once paid crores for a snail-paced 2 Mbps line — things have improved significantly in India. He is also an executive council member of a startup industry body, the Alliance of Digital India Foundation.

“In 1999, when I wanted to be an internet service provider, I had to first lease an internet line from what was once India’s only Gateway internet access service provider Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL). Guess how much that cost me? It cost me Rs 1.18 crore for an internet connection with 2 Mbps speed. Today, I can get the same for Rs 70,000,” said Data.

“Now you can get 4G/5G internet, calling, SMS, everything for under Rs 300 a month. So, while we will always want things to be cheaper, the telcos will set prices to manage their own business operations. But, nobody can say the internet is not affordable in India now, or that the speed is too slow.”

In her Budget speech Wednesday, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that India’s per capita income had increased to Rs 1.97 lakh. According to Data, this suggests that internet connections have become affordable and “nobody can say the speed is too slow”.

However, the broader question that the Surfshark study explores is not affordability but whether everyone benefits equally from India having 4G/5G internet, as many don’t get the promised speeds.

Osama Manzar, founder of the Digital Empowerment Foundation — a Delhi-based non-profit that aims to make technology easily accessible to the masses — holds a different view.

For Manzar — who works in rural areas to improve access to healthcare, education, skills and livelihood opportunities — the issue is that the internet currently doesn’t give everyone a “meaningful” experience, primarily due to unpredictable speeds.

“The ground reality for people in remote and rural areas is there is a serious problem with promised bandwidth. There is always a buffering issue or non-availability of consistent internet,” he says.

This leads to a “serious lack of meaningful connectivity” where even if there is internet it becomes useless because meaningful transactions related to education, healthcare, and finance are hard to realise, he adds.

But despite such drawbacks, Surfshark’s rankings indicate that the situation is improving in India. 

Between 2021 and 2022, India performed fairly well on various indicators. In 2022, it was ranked 21st for affordability, an improvement from 47th in 2022. In terms of internet quality — defined with respect to both the speed and stability of mobile and broadband internet — India’s ranking improved to 57 in 2022 from 67 in 2021.

(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)