The Department of Telecom (DoT) is planning to make Broadband Internet a basic right as part of National Broadband Policy that it plans to introduce in the next 100 days, reports The Economic Times. The report states that the new policy will include broadband among basic necessities like education and health, and work towards new legislation of 'Right to Broadband'. Do note that India passed Right to Education bill in 2009, but has not created a Right to Health bill as yet. It is not clear if the policy will specify different requirements for wired and wireless broadband. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had started a consultation process earlier this year, for setting a minimum download speeds of 1Mbps for 3G connections and 56Kbps for 2G connections, in April this year. It had also changed the definition of broadband to refer to connections with speeds over 512kbps in December last year. It is not clear if these factors will also be changed as part of the new policy. This is important since India has one of the slowest high-speed broadband adoption internationally according to Akamai. One ministry to control them all The policy is also expected to look at ways to increase broadband penetration and convergence of various platforms like cable TV, optical fibre, wireless connection through spectrum, VSAT and satellite. Currently these platforms fall under different departments. Cable TV for example, comes under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, while satellite related issues are majorly governed by the Department of…
