ACT Fibernet launches 1 Gbps speed broadband services

ACT Fibernet has launched, for the first time in the country, wired broadband internet services with speeds of 1 Gbps.

The 1 Gbps plan will be available for all retail customers in Hyderabad initially at Rs. 5,999 per month, with a FUP of 1 TB. The service will soon be expanded to all the 11 cities ACT is present.

The service was launched in the presence of Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao, Minister for IT, Telengana.

ACT is the first ISP in India to "giga enable an entire city in India".

 Bala Malladi, CEO, ACT Fibernet, said India was one of the few countries to get broadband speeds of 1 Gbps.

Malladi said ACT was the first ISP to provide such huge speeds and FUP to retail customers. "High speed connections are available only for enterprise customers. ACT Fibernet has made it available to any individual. We will be able to provide the high-speed service within 72-90 hours of application," he said.

Putting things in perspective, Malladi said the average internet speed in India was only 2.5 Mbps compared to the 1 Gbps now offered by ACT. The downloads would be faster than transferring data from a USB drive, he said. This would enable users to upload even huge files to the cloud in seconds and download ten HD movies simultaneously in less than 10 minutes.

He said 1 TB of FUP may appear huge, but "if you have one or two teenagers in your house, they will easily eat up the bandwidth."

The best part was that the upgrade could be done with the existing fiber network, Malladi said. Only the last mile cabling would need replacement for supporting such high speeds, he said. "We have been working on this for over one-and a half years, so that every user who goes for the service gets the exact speed he has signed up for."

Malladi said the user would never have to worry about data limits or speeds any more. Multiple users can simultaneously download or upload huge amounts of data without worries, he said

This would be a boon for startups, Malladi said. "A start-up cannot afford to pay Rs. 5 or 6 lakhs for a leased line. Enabling startups to have a cost-effective high-speed internet access will change the face of digital India," he said.