By Anand Parthasarathy
August 14, 2023: Based on an agency report a few days ago, many in the media headlined that India lagged behind its neighbours in Internet resilience. A close study of the original source plus other monitors of the global Internet would however show that this a cup-half empty approach.
According to the recent finding of the annual study by the US based non profit Internet Society titled Pulse Internet Resilience Index (IRI), India’s IRI is 43% to Bhutan’s 58%, Bangladesh 51%, Maldives 54% percent and Sri Lanka 47 %. The country is ahead of Pakistan.
The IRI draws upon more than 20 open data sources to calculate a snapshot of a country’s Internet resilience in terms of its:
-Infrastructure — The existence and availability of physical infrastructure that provides Internet connectivity.
-Performance — The ability of the network to provide end-users with seamless and reliable access to Internet services.
-Security — The ability of the network to resist intentional or unintentional disruptions through the adoption of security technologies and best practices.
-Market Readiness — The ability of the market to self-regulate and provide affordable prices to end-users by maintaining a diverse and competitive market.
According to the details for India, the country’s Internet scores high on security – 66 percent, with good routing hygiene, domain name security and protection against attacks. Importantly it is one of the world’s largest networks 100% compliant with the latest Ipv6 Internet protocol -- something less than half the world’s networks or 46% have achieved.
However where India needs to improve is on infrastructure (score 31%) and market readiness (score35%.).
Affordability is rated very high (87%) with one of the world’s cheapest Internet plans.
In the survey there is no weightage for size or speed of the network – and this does matter. The Indian network is larger than that of all the other four nations cited put together so obviously the infrastructural challenge is a bigger challenge.
The other national ratings in the Internet Society Index for comparison are USA 58%, UK 60%, UAE 48%, Germany 66%, Russia 57%, Norway 66% with a global average of 57%
Does speed matter?
Average speed is also an important factor – it must sustain the heavy use of the system for digital payments and other services that touch the majority of users.
The industry’s popular Ookla speed test maintains a log of global Net speeds – both on mobile devices and on fibre networks. India ranks no. 55 among 180 countries for mobile speed of 42.75 MBPS and no. 83 for a fixed internet speed of 53.18 MBPS.
Interestingly the speed on mobile phones in India which is how 800 million connections access the Internet ( according to the Telecom Authority of India) is faster than available in the UK ( 41.35 MBPS). That nation however offers a faster fixed line speed of 81.12 MBPS. It is therefore a case of national priorities: citizens or business. India has put its money in empowering its large population first which may not be a bad thing after all.
The pointers to infrastructure and market readiness leaving room for improvement is something planners may need to address.
This report has appeared in Swarajya
