India is all set to lead the world Internet race in another couple of years.At present there are about 121 million internet users in India which is growing at a hofty rate of 5-7 millions per month.It has been estimated that in 2 years India will surpass US which has the highest 243 million Internet Users.
This statistics appeared in the annual I-Cube Report jointly published by Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB. Another interesting fact is that by December India will have 10 % internet penetration, which means that one in every 10 Indians will access Internet at least once a week.The majority of Internet Users reside in small towns where the population is less than 5 lakhs. There are more internet users in towns with population less than 5 lakhs as compared to 8 metros taken together.
The National Telecom Policy-2011 has set a target of achieving 175 million broadband connections by the year 2017 and 600 million by the year 2020 at minimum 2 Mbps download speed and making available higher speeds of at least 100 Mbps on demand.
It has also appeared that public Internet access points like cyber cafes continue to be important, though there has been a fall in access from these centres. Around 37 percent of users access the Internet from home, 23 percent from cyber cafes, 22 percent from office, nine percent from mobile devices and rest from schools and other centres.