Why is the internet speed slow in India?

Because of the lack of infrastructure. Now the speeds in India are also improving. I use http://acttv.in  and get speeds around 3-4MBps which is comparable to my friends who live in US. I mean to say that we are also getting there

Most of us would have thought of this at least once.. Average Internet speed in India stands at 849 KBPS.26% of Internet population in india is well below 256 KBPS speed.Internet pricing and speed varies wildly across the world. The US, for instance, currently ranks 15th in speed but enjoys reasonably priced internet access. How reasonably priced? If you’re a US citizen you likely have an average internet access speed of 4.8 mbps and you pay a little over $3 per mbps. If you’re in Sweden, however, you likely have an 18 mbps connection and you pay a scant 63 cents per mpbs. The real envy of the internet speed Olympics by far is Japan with a mighty 61 mbps at a mere 27 cents per mbps. so why low speed and high price?its because India is one of the most populated nation in the world ... so the infrastructure is not enough to satisfy the demands for bandwidth , and also piracy in india is high so ISPs are eternally afraid of Indian Torrent maniacs so to discourage this they make it costly. The main problem regarding high prices for net connections in India is also due to low supply and high demand. A 10Gbps connection used by ISPs costs around nine million dollars to eleven million dollars per annum. While in China it is calculated to be around $2 million.

I think it can't change overnight. But, the internet costs are coming down and speeds increasing maybe not at an exponential rate though. I had a 512 kbps connection and I recently got it upgraded to a whopping 50 mbps. And it didn't burn a really big hole in the pocket. Around Rs 800 per month. Most of my friends have internet speeds ranging from 10 to 100 mbps. The Xerox center guy near my house uses 16mbps. Docomo 3g speeds are about 5 mbps. One of my friends now uses a 4g cellular internet service. Yes, this is all just in big cities like Bangalore now, but it'll spread to smaller towns soon enough. Everyone's using the internet. Slowly but definitely.

I don't know what you mean by slow. Below is the different packages offered by ACT(Atria Convergence Technologies) in Bangalore & Chennai respectively: I live in Bangalore and have the ACT Storm connection and frankly that kinda makes me jealous of Chennai. Dayum!

So many apt answers are there, but I just needed to add one more point.Internet service providers have not been investing enough into innovative solutions. Before DTH came into picture most of the houses had cable tv services which could have been used for providing Internet.Biggest hurdle is interoperability of such innovation. Like google loon project, how does google plan to l use it once such outskirts get connected to mainstream. Can DTH also be used for providing Internet.

The reason by indian broadband have limited speed and data limit on hight cost compared to other countries like US n china . They pay 6 to 10 dollars for internet and they dont have any limited excess on the broadband Internet they get hight speed excess on cheap cost bcz company's like airtel bsnl takes there networks from foreign satellite for example like airtel takes and runs his dth, internet , gsm all these network from SES7 satellite its Dutch company. They dont use indian satellite. Like if u see mtnl bsnl takes his network from Russian satellite they have agreement of MOU WITH the company . This is the reason the price and excess to the internet is expensive and we limited download . we are paying 512 kbps speed for 1200 of u see after 10 g.b limitation. High price and 3rd class plans.

Internet speed is slow in India due to infrastructure. Government carelessness and over dependency on the private telecom companies. Though covering almost every corner of our country. Bsnl still lack capability to provide hassle free connection. It's all because of lobbying by the big private players who keep heating the pocket of our politicians, who in return do not come up with a plan or provide resources to upscale public services infrastructure. And ultimately the results is what you can see today. Indian Public Telecom players seek reforms, even though they have everything they need. It's because of our incompetent political system and its misery, India is lagging behind.

It was because of the policy and the policy makers. Example: 2G Scam, before this problem it was first come fist out auctioning of spectrum, at that period if you notice the call cost was very cheap but after this scam the base price of the bandwidth are increased and so the internet charges and call cost also increased considerably. It's still worse now if a auction is going for 4G connection the increased price pay by the service provider are burdened over the existing costumers(This can also happen in future).

There is a big demand for high speed internet in the country. Unlike the past, all ages in India are using the internet right now and no one will wait for a long time to get the page results. So, ISPs are making a good money out of it. "Make hay while the sun shines" - true. Where there is a big demand, there ll be huge money shower too. Just ask yourself, what are you paying for 3G in your mobile for 1GB now? and google the past price of it. You ll know the difference. Ppl love to browse faster, so they set their own price for big profit, in this case no customer 'd complain as they badly need it.