High-Speed Internet Technology on Route to Chandigarh: Breaking out of the age of older DSL and 4G solutions, Chandigarh is one of the many cities in India now lining up for the implementation of faster next-generation internet.
Best illustrated by fiber wired plans and 5G wireless, this technology aims to raise the bar of what the internet within the city can accomplish, and the first stages of the rollout are already underway.
Acting as attractive prospects for both business and personal use, these new systems hold considerable potential, but they might not be worth rushing out for just yet.
Home Fibre Connections
As with most countries, the 2020s in India have been a time of significant interest in fiber investment. Though India’s rare size and geography have presented some challenges on this front, the rollout is still progressing smoothly.
This has aligned with predictions from PM Modi that fiber connectivity is expected to reach six lakh villages by the end of 2022. As a more major city, Chandigarh was among the first to receive commercial rollout. Now featuring availability in many major areas, services like Airtel are now offering packages up to 300Mbps, with potential for further speed increases in the future.
In terms of usability, this speed upgrade could prove immensely worthwhile for business and government services. No longer bottlenecked by slower DSL, these higher speeds should facilitate better database management and data backups at a much faster rate.
In turn, this change is likely to result in more efficient work and remote work systems, as well as the more rapid and reliable implementation of safety systems.
On a personal level, an upgrade to fiber might not yet be as useful. Naturally more expensive than slower solutions, at least for now, the high-speed of fiber is only useful in certain circumstances.
If a home environment has many simultaneous users or unusually high-data concerns for things like uploads and high-def streaming, this speed could be worth it.
Otherwise, users who enjoy general browsing and low-data uses such as playing this online casino in Indian rupees wouldn’t yet see appreciable improvements with an upgrade. On websites like this, playing games like the Starburst and Fire Joker slots would experience no slowdown even on older connections, making the upgrade moot. The same would apply to their more demanding titles like live games, in which renting fiber would simply add unnecessary cost.
5G Wireless Networks
The rollout of 5G in India has been slower than fiber, owing to its reliance on fiber connection as a base. Despite how far fiber has extended into Chandigarh, connection maps don’t yet feature 5G signals. This is likely due to the primary focus of connecting fiber first.
Statistics from the end of 2020 show that around 30% of cell towers in India have been fiberized so far, with this proportion having to reach around 60% to fully realize 5G potential.
As with fiber, the usefulness of 5G will depend highly on the use case. For most casual mobile users who turn to their devices for light videos and music, this upgrade should show few significant advantages. Businesses and mobile workers managing large amounts of mobile data are likely to be the first to see serious upgrades through this shift.
Though Chandigarh is still some time off seeing complete fiber and 5G adoption, for most users this delay shouldn’t be an issue. Rather than being a necessity right now, ultra-fast internet is more of a forward-looking technology, where countries are getting ahead of the curve before demand overrides supply.
That said, with inevitable price drops that bring ultra-high-speed closer to the cost of older systems, an upgrade being worthwhile is just a matter of time.
