TRAI floats consultation paper on internet data speeds

NEW DELHI: Indian smartphone users could hope for faster Internet services in the future as the telecom regulator has decided to look into data speeds promised by carriers and the actual speed, citing increasing number of consumer complaints.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai) wants to know whether an average data speed can be specified by carriers, the tariff plan framework requires changes to encourage more transparency and comparison between different plans, and whether any revision of the quality of service parameters is needed, all in an effort to improve data speeds.

“The surge in the number of broadband connections in the country has been accompanied by increasing reports of consumer dissatisfaction with the speed of data being provided to them,” the sector regulator said on Thursday. while issuing a consultation paper on the matter.

“The widespread adoption of wireless broadband services in the last few quarters makes it particularly important to take into account the problems that may be faced by the users… particularly in relation to data speeds,” it added. The regulator has sought stakeholders’ views by June 29 and counterviews by July 13. India had more than 217.95 million data subscribers as of 2016 end, while average data usage has risen from 236 MB a month in September to 884 MB in December 2016.

The regulator had set the minimum download speed at 2 Mbps effective January 1, 2015, up from 512 kbps earlier, while introducing the Myspeed analytics app, which collects data speed via crowdsourcing.

Trai now wants to help consumers make informed choices by ensuring transparency in data speeds, as disclosures made by carriers on data speed, contract terms, latency, etc, are not always understood by customers, it said in the paper.