‘1 Gbps broadband speed plans for India retail users soon’

NEW DELHI, Oct 7: Retail broadband users may have access to ultra-fast download speeds of one gigabit per second plan by mid-2013 in nine Indian cities, according telecom infrastructure firm Radius Infratel.
“In the next 6-9 months, world class 1,000 Mbps or 1 Gbps (Gigabits per second) plans will be available in India to residential consumers. On connections like these, the same two hour HD movie will download in 30 seconds,” Radius Infratel CEO Rajnish Wahi told.
A two-hour movie in high definition version will be about 2.2 GB (Giga Bytes) size, he added.
At average broadband speeds, the same movie takes over an hour for full download, experts said.
Whil Wahi declined to disclose the names of service providers or the cities where these plans will be first available, he said that discussions are underway and network deployment is already complete to enable this in Gurgaon.
He said Radius has partnered with real estate developers, including DLF, Unitech, Emaar MGF, Ansal, Mantri, Vipul, ATS, Omaxe, Vipul, M3M, Paramount and Prateek for fibre optic network that will provide high-speed broadband services in projects being developed by them.
“Radius network is already available in or near 3 lakh homes and is live in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Greater Noida, Indirapuram (Ghaziabad). The network will soon be available in Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai and Chandigarh,” Executive Director of Radius Infratel, Kuldeep Goyal said.
At present, Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices have launched 100 megabit per second plans for common users. These cost over Rs 5,000 per month.
According to reports, 1 Gbps Internet services were recently launched in Kansas City in the US. (PTI)