With India still struggling to demolish the reputation of being one of the countries with slowest internet speed, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), Mumbai is all set to become the first internet service provider in the country to offer minimum Broadband speed of 512 Kbps with all broadband plans. MTNL is the largest broadband service provider in Mumbai.

India has the world’s third largest Internet population with over 121 million users despite having one of the world’s lowest Internet penetration levels at 8.4%.  Only 0.4 percent of them had connections with a speed in excess of 5 Mbps. This is in comparison to Hong Kong having an average speed of 9.4 Mbps and Japan of Mbps.

TRAI in 2011 had asid that It is universally recognized that the minimum speed as per definition of broadband in India is very low i.e. 256kbps. What has been proposed by the Authority as part of the National Broadband Plan is a minimum download speed of 512 Kbps immediately and 2 Mbps by January 1, 2015,

“MTNL is number one Broadband service provider in Mumbai and also second largest inIndia with more than 5.5 lacs customers in Mumbai circle. This customer friendly step by has been proactively initiated by MTNL Mumbai to give the customers faster broadband experience at affordable tariff and without any extra charges”, said Shri Peeyush Agrawal, Executive Director, MTNL Mumbai

This new initiative will allow MTNL broadband customers in Mumbai having broadband plans with download speed less then 512 Kbps to automatically upgrad to 512 Kbps download speed, without any additional charges. 

Aprt from this, MTNL has also introduced three new broadband plans for the MTNL Triband customers.  DSL 250 plan and DSL 450 plan with 2 Mbps download speed. These broadband plans have a monthly rent of Rs.250/- and Rs.450/- respectively with free data usage of 1 GB and 3 GB and charges after free usage as 50p/Mb and 30p/Mb respectively.