Internet in India
Internet in India, which began in 1986 with access only to the educational and research community and on 15 August 1995 with access to the general public In 2025, india has over 1 billion internet users. As of 2025, 7 in 10 Indians are now online, with 70% internet penetration. It is reported that in 2022 an average mobile Internet consumption in India was 19.5GB per month and the mobile data usage per month rose from 4.5 exabytes in 2018 to 14.4 exabytes in 2022. The Indian Government has embarked on Mega projects such as Digital India, BharatNet, Common Service Centres, UPI instant payment system, Startup India, and others to further expedite the growth of internet-based ecosystems.
History
1986: Early days and ERNET
In 1986, the history of the Internet in India began with the launch of the Educational Research Network, The network was made available only to educational and research communities. even though the early pre-internet computer networks were operated in India since the late 1970s by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and the Indian Military. along with general-use computer networks such as INDONET, NICNET, and VIKRAM. ERNET was initiated by the Department of Electronics, with funding from the Government of India and United Nations Development Program, involving eight premier institutions as participating agencies—NCST Bombay, Indian Institute of Science, five Indian Institutes of Technology, and the DoE in New Delhi. ERNET began as a multi protocol network with both the TCP/IP and the OSI-IP protocol stacks running over the leased-line portion of the backbone. Since 1995, however, almost all traffic is carried over TCP/IP.In 1990, the ERNET was allotted Class B IP address 144.16.0.0 by NIC. Subsequently, Class C addresses were allotted to ERNET by APNIC.
In January 1991, the first leased line of 9.6 kbit/s was installed in January 1991 between Delhi and Mumbai.
In 1992, all IITs, IISc Bangalore, DOE Delhi and NCST Mumbai were connected by 9.6 kbit/s leased line, 64 kbit/s Internet gateway link was commissioned from NCST Mumbai to UUNet in Virginia in United States.
In 1995, NICNet was established for communications between government institutions. The network was operated by the National Informatics Centre.
1995: Public internet in India
On 15 August 1995, the first publicly available internet service in India was launched by state-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited. At the time, VSNL had a monopoly over international communications in the country and private enterprise was not permitted in the sector. The internet service, known as the Gateway Internet Access Service, provided a speed of 9.6 kbit/s speed and was priced at ₹5,200 for 250 hours for individuals, ₹16,200 for institutional dial-up SLIP/PPP accounts, and higher for leased line services. However, for the next 10 years, the Internet experience in the country remained less attractive, with narrow-band connections having speeds less than 56 kbit/s.In 1997, Integrated Services Digital Network access was introduced.
2004: Broadband
In 2004, the government formulated its broadband policy, which defined broadband as "an always-on Internet connection with a download speed of 256 kbit/s or above."Since 2005, the growth of the broadband sector in the country accelerated but remained below the growth estimates of the government and related agencies due to resource issues in last-mile access, which were predominantly wired-line technologies.
2010: Wireless broadband
In 2010, to improve the internet speed and remove the speed bottleneck of wired-line, the government pushed for the wireless mobile by auctioning the 3G spectrum, followed by 4G spectrum auction, that set the scene for a competitive and invigorated wireless broadband market.In 2013, the minimum speed requirement for broadband connection was set as 512 kbit/s. This requirement was further raised to 2 Mbit/s in 2023.
In 2020, WANI policy India was launched, aimed at increasing internet connectivity especially in rural areas and enhancing the proliferation of public Wi-Fi hotspots across the country by creating a robust decentralized digital communications infrastructure with Public Data Offices operating, maintaining, and delivering broadband services to subscribers through Wi-Fi access points or routers.
2023: 5G and 6G
Since 2023, 5G was driving India's internet speed. The 6G innovation is driven by India's indigenous government and industry alliance Bharat 6G AllianceTechnologies
Wireless Internet
The following frequencies are used to provide wireless Internet services in India:- 2G : GSM 900 MHz, GSM 1800 MHz
- 3G : WCDMA UMTS 2100 MHz, 900 MHz
- 4G : TD-LTE 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz, FD-LTE 2100 MHz, 1800 MHz, 900 MHz, 850 MHz
- CDMA : 800 MHz
- 5G :
Wired Internet
Internet services
Internet user base
India has the second highest number of Internet users in the world. The following table provides an overview of Internet subscriber statistics in India as on 30 September 2023.| Statistic | Figures |
| Total subscribers | 918.19 million |
| Narrowband subscribers | 33.19 million |
| Broadband subscribers | 885 million |
| Wired subscribers | 37.11 million |
| Wireless subscribers | 881.08 million |
| Urban subscribers | 542.53 million |
| Rural subscribers | 375.66 million |
| Overall net penetration | 65.89% |
| Urban net penetration | 110.03% |
| Rural net penetration | 41.72% |
World Economic Forum reports that 60% of Indian internet users viewed vernacular content and only about a quarter of internet users were over the age of 35 years in 2019, 1.1 billion Indians would have access to the Internet by 2030 with 80% of the subscriber base primarily accessing the Internet on mobile devices. The profile of India's internet user base was predicted to diversify by 2030 with 80% of users accessing vernacular content and with users over 25 years making up 45% of the total subscriber base. There is also a digital gender gap with far more male Internet users in the country compared to female users. The gap is more pronounced in rural hinterlands compared to urban metros.
Broadband subscribers
The following table shows the top 5 broadband service providers in India by total subscriber base as of 31 December 2023.The following table shows the top 4 Wired broadband service providers in India by total subscriber base as of 31 December 2023.
The following table shows the top 4 Wireless broadband service providers in India by total subscriber base as of 31 December 2023.
| Provider | Subscribers | Ownership |
| Jio | 459.81 | Jio Platforms |
| Airtel | 257.37 | Bharti Airtel |
| Vi | 127.28 | Vodafone Idea Limited |
| BSNL | 21.28 | Government of India |
Internet service providers
In 2023, there were 1151 Internet service providers offering broadband and narrowband services in India; which owned 42,133 Gbit/s total international Internet bandwidth. International bandwidth is the maximum rate of data transmission from a single country to the rest of the world. In 2023, ten largest ISPs account for 98.82% of the total subscriber base, namely Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea, BSNL and Atria Convergence Technologies ; five largest wired broadband providers were Jio, Airtel, BSNL, Atria Convergence Technologies, Hathway ; and the five largest wireless broadband providers are Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea, BSNL and Intech Online Pvt. Ltd.The telecom circles of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh have the most internet subscribers as on 30 September 2023.
Common Service Centres (CSC) for people with no internet access
, a key component of the Digital India, provide essential government and non-government services through internet to citizens specially those who are not connected to the internet, particularly in rural and remote areas. CSCs act as access points for various public utility services, social welfare schemes, healthcare, financial, and education services, CSCs play a crucial role in the digital empowerment of the underserved populations.Internet speed
Since 2023, 5G was driving India's internet speed, ranking ahead of many G20 countries.In November 2023 Speedtest Global Index, ranked India 18th out of 145 countries by median mobile Internet speed and 87th out of 181 countries by median fixed broadband speed.
TRAI in India defines the minimum speed for the internet to be classified as broadband and over the years TRAI has upwardly revised these minimum download speed. In 2014 TRAI increased the minimum download speed from 256 kbit/s to 512 kbit/s, and in 2021 to 2 Mbit/s.
Data cost
As per the Global Mobile Data Affordability Index, India with 11th rank is among countries with world's lowest cost for the internet and mobile data as data cost in India is only 0.65% of salary as compared to the global average of 4.09% salary. After the launch of Reliance Jio in 2016, Internet data rates dropped considerably, and the rival telecom companies responded by expanding their fiber optic networks with lower data costs offers to the consumers.Global connectivity
In February 2024, the Internet is delivered to India mainly by 17 different undersea fibre cables, including SEA-ME-WE 3, Bay of Bengal Gateway and Europe India Gateway, arriving at 5 different landing points. In 2022, it was reported that India is also a potential market of Starlink. And apart from having one overland internet connection at the city of Agartala near the border with Bangladesh, India has also established a 2,300-kilometre undersea cable to its Andaman and Nicobar archipelago in 2020 and a 1,868 kilometre undersea cable to Lakshadweep islands to increase internet connectivity. In 2024, Reliance has completed underlying the world's largest submarine cable system, Europe-Xpress and India-Asia-Xpress, connecting Europe and Asia with India its centre.In September 2025, undersea cable cuts in the Red Sea disrupted internet connectivity in parts of Asia and the Middle East, including India. NetBlocks attributed the outages to failures in the SMW4 and IMEWE systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Indian providers quickly rerouted traffic through alternative networks, limiting the impact on domestic users and highlighting the resilience of India's internet infrastructure.