Most of us would have thought of this at least once. In this post, I will try to explain the reasons for expensive Internet access in India. I have tried to make this article very simple to understand. The broad technical details are far from what can be explained in this article.
The reason is connected with the beginning and development of Internet itself. Internet was started as a Defense Project in USA. As with any new technology, Internet gained popularity in US and was finally opened to commercial interests. When people realized the advantage of the new system, it became more popular, especially email. Again, most of the operations were based out of US, Canada and UK.
This has lead to establishment of more Internet based companies and websites in later years, with most of them based out of US. In the mid and late 1990’s it gained popularity all over the world and different countries have became a part of this big network either through some government agency or though some commercial establishments.
The cost factor comes from the fact that most of the servers are based out of United States or United Kingdom. To get a connectivity to US and get access to the network, Internet Service Providers has to do two things:
- Get a physical link from India to US and UK.
- Handover the traffic to an upstream provider.
Since most of the servers are based out of US, the physical links to US will be of higher capacity. There are many web servers in UK also. UK acts as a gateway to Europe also. At this point of time, the capacity from India to US would be of the order of 10G. Again, there are two paths to reach US – one via Pacific and other via Atlantic. Both the capacities will be of the order of 10G. Also there would be connectivity from India to UK, Hong Kong and Singapore. This connectivity is very expensive. There are some segments where there is bandwidth constraint also. So again the prices would go up.
What will happen to the traffic once it reaches US or UK? We have to handover the traffic to someone who has the connectivity to the server which is being accessed. Again, this access is not free. ISPs have to pay their US counterparts for carrying traffic in their network. Such an agreement is called a Transit Agreement. At some point of time, if both the parties feel that both of them can gain from each others traffic, the Transit agreement may change to a Peering agreement, which would be free – only port charges are applicable.
There are some government regulations also. Internet exchanges are a way of exchanging local traffic locally. Think of a situation where provider A and provider B do not have a direct connection India. For A to reach B’s network, the traffic should be carried to US or UK or some other handover location and then come back to India. That is not a good thing for end users as they will feel that the connections to the other network is very slow. To avoid such a situation, we have a regulatory authority in India called NIXI(national Internet Exchange of India). All the service providers in India has to have peering in NIXI to exchange the local traffic.
Again, owing to the fact that most of the servers are located in US, the Internet access would continue to be expensive. I personally do not think that the prices would fall be low a certain level. Again, since Americans do not have to carry much of their Internet traffic all over the world, their Internet Access would be cheaper. Most of the International Internet links will have more political interests, than the commercial ones.
If you would like to hear more about this or some related subjects, do let me know. I will continue more on this and related topics.
Also, there is something about gateway scarcity in india about which I remember reading somewhere.
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Anand,
I know three gateways in India. Mumbai, Chennai and Eranakulam. Important ones are Mumbai and Chennai from where most of the traffic is sent out. So it should not be a problem.
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@Derick,
I think the situation will change. For instance check out most of the Indian companies, they are now hosting their servers in India itself, likewise if server firms gain bandwidth the situation will be reciprocal of current.
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Although the situation is improving, the data flowing out of India is very high compared to data within India. Again, many of our ISPs are upgrading their network on a bimonthly basis to keep up with the increasing demand for data. The increase in volume can benefit factor#2, which I mentioned – Transit Agreement Cost.
Well, lets hope for the best.
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16Mbps with 20GB Data limit for Rs 3K a month is just FAIL!
I hope the situation really improves. Just read a news which said some company in France provides 100Mbps line for $25 a month!
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Nicely explained..
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CAN ANYBODY PROVIDE ME THE LIST OF INTERNET PROVIDER IN INDIA IN THE YEAR 2009
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The research and development of the internet was funded by the American taxpayer. As far as the cost of access being high, simple solution, do not connect to servers in the United States. You guys love American technology but never consider the brainpower and money that went into it by the American people…you are freeloaders.
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@Billy,
Nothing is given free. So everyone is paying for whatever they use. Your solution sounds very childish, it is like telling US companies not to sell their products in India or not to hire Indians. Do you think it is that simple in today’s world? Just think…
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Thank you very much for this excellent writeup.
Hurricane Electric operates an international Internet backbone with servers all around the world for a reason. We encourage users from all countries to try out IPv6. We have a vested interest in making sure your experience is educational and positive.
For anybody considering using a tunnel, if you are a network engineer, system administrator, or software engineer, please also consider completing our free IPv6 certification program at http://ipv6.he.net/certification
Our tools make an effort to suggest the servers that are closest according to *network topology*. This may be US based servers or servers elsewhere on our backbone. Backbone network topology is not the same as geographic topology.
We hope to expand to India one day so we can connect to NIXI (http://nixi.in/). So far we have made it to Tokyo and Hong Kong, next location geography-wise in Asia is Singapore.
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Ooops! Posted to the wrong article. There is more than one good writeup here. Sorry, was having fun reading your articles.
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Actually, responding more directly to this article to give you some figures for backbone costs:
Backbone circuits from Los Angeles to New York cost roughly as much as it costs to go from New York to London.
Backbone circuits from London to Amsterdam, Paris, and Frankfurt cost anywhere from half to a quarter of Los Angeles to New York.
Backbone circuits from Los Angeles to Tokyo cost 4 times as much as Los Angeles to New York.
Bakcbone circuits from Tokyo to Hong Kong cost 3 times as much as Los Angeles to New York.
Backbone circuits from Hong Kong to India cost 10 to 20 times as much as Los Angeles to New York.
*That* is why the Internet costs more in India.
As there become more ocean fiber projects run between India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tapei, Seoul, and Tokyo, then prices will drop for IP Transit in Asia.
I know we are certainly watching closely. We’d love to be able get cheap backbone circuits to India so we can provide wholesale IP Transit in Bangalore or Mumbai.
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