GSAT satellites will be launched by next year and India having the internet speed over 100 Gbps will be the reality soon.

After the launch of GSAT-11, GSAT-29 and GSAT-20 by next, India in the next few years will have high bandwidth connectivity over 100 Gbps, said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman Dr K Sivan , speaking to Times of India. 

"India has the world's second largest internet user base. But, our present broadband speed is 76th in the world. Isro has already launched GSAT-19 This year, Isro will launch GSAT-11 and GSAT-29 and early next year, GSAT-20 will be launched. All these are high throughput satellites and together they will provide more than 100 Gbps high bandwidth connectivity across the country which will help bridge the digital divide," Sivan told TOI.

It can be noted that even the central government had said it is planning to set up 2.5 million wi-fi hotspots. The planned wi-fi hotspots help the Centre to take internet connectivity to the rural areas and are being connected under BharatNet.

The strategy is to install 1.25 million wi-fi hotspots with the help of funding from USO (universal service obligation), grants under under PDOA (public data office aggregator) system, rest of the 1 million wi-fi hotspots to be set up by telecom operators through viability gap funding. Also, BSNL and CSCs (common service centres) will be encouraged to install hotspots, reported DNA.

The work in this regard has already begun as the tender for first phase of work has been invited. The contract is expected to be finalised by the end of September. 

The draft policy announced earlier this year also has a target of providing 1 gbps connectivity to all GPs by 2020 and 10 gbps by 2022, setting up 5 million public wi-fi hotspots by 2020 and 10 million by 2022.