Huawei has placed India at the 44th rank in its 2016 Global Connectivity Index survey, the same position the country was in last year. It’s not entirely bad news for the nation though, as the company has pointed out that the situation is steadily improving here.
The annual Huawei Global Connectivity Index marks the progress in the area of internet accessibility in 50 countries. All the nations are categorized into 3 groups namely Starter, Adopter and Frontrunners. India belongs to the first along with places like Pakistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Venezuela and Qatar.
The US, Singapore and Sweden have all grabbed the top spot in the list. Meanwhile, India has been making slow but steady progress in the field of connectivity. Smartphone adoption and mobile broadband subscriptions are continuing to exhibit growth. A previous report had even claimed that India was the second biggest handset market in the world right now.
Another sign of progress is the deployment of 4G services in India, with telecom operators such as Airtel, Idea and Vodafone launching the high-speed network across the nation. When it comes to future opportunities, Huawei thinks the subcontinent should focus on speeding up its optical fiber Bharat Broadband Networks project.
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To recap, the initiative is meant to provide cheap internet access to rural areas. Moreover, Huawei says that both the public and private sectors must invest in its networks to better serve customers. Universal broadband access with digital literacy programs have got to be a top priority in order to close the rural-urban gap.