By Dr Sarath Kumar, Chief Technology Officer, ACT Fibernet
The household internet wasn’t always this small device (router) smartly disseminating Wi-Fi signals across the house and devices, monitoring it for disruptions, and fixing itself.
Three decades ago, we embarked on a journey that seemed like a distant dream and was alien to many. The very first time India embraced home internet. A country as vast as India, with different geographical landscapes and dialects, it felt impossible to make Indian homes digitally equipped. But passion, perseverance, and innovation redefined possibility. Today, here we are, living our dreams, a mission accomplished to build an inclusive digital infrastructure. A world where internet technology is no longer a privilege, it has become a necessity. A lifeline for progress, a spark for innovation, and the silent engine behind millions of everyday triumphs.
Introduced to India through an oversized CRT monitor with limited memory that stood in the living room, connecting to the internet at that moment was a mix of magic and mystery. Adding to it, browsing was a shared resource that demanded patience, coordination, and more often than not, negotiation. Yet for all its friction, it offered something profound: a window to the world.
Fast forward to today, and the internet has undergone a quiet transformation. We don’t “connect” to it anymore, it simply surrounds us, and we are always connected. It spans rooms, floors, and devices, operating in the background with a kind of quiet efficiency. More than just a utility, the home network has become a responsive, intelligent layer of our daily lives. But this hasn’t happened overnight. The years of technological advancement has resulted in turning internet from a luxury to a necessity. India’s home internet story mirrors this broader digital evolution. In 2009, only 2% of Indian households had internet access. By 2014, that number had climbed to 30%. Today, nearly 80% of homes are connected. Let’s take a closer look at how that story has unfolded:
The dial-up era: Access with audible trade-offs
In the 1990s and early 2000s, internet access in India was defined by dial-up connections with speeds capped at 56 kbps. That screeching modem sound, though unmistakably nostalgic today, symbolised disruption back then. Internet sessions blocked the phone line, and every hour online required familial negotiation. Internet usage was confined to late-night browsing, undertaken more out of curiosity than necessity. Computers were typically placed in common spaces, making internet use a visible and communal activity. Nationally, fewer than 0.5% of Indian households had internet access in 2000, marking the exclusivity of the medium. The takeaway from this phase is clear: internet access was not only limited and slow, it was spatially and socially constrained.
Always on, but not always everywhere (2005–2015)
The arrival of DSL and cable broadband in the mid-2000s marked a turning point. For the first time, internet access became continuous. The shift from dial-up to broadband removed the friction of logging in and enabled new behaviours like streaming video, downloading media, and casual web browsing. Wi-Fi routers entered Indian homes, promising freedom from cables. But the experience often fell short. A single router placed near the main entry point of the home struggled to cover more than a couple of rooms. Upper floors and bedrooms remained under-connected. Despite infrastructure limitations, adoption surged. India’s internet subscriber base reached 251 million by March 2014. Households became gradually more internet-reliant. Yet the government-defined broadband threshold — 512 Kbps — barely supported modern applications. This phase expanded access, but left many homes with weak internal coverage. The technology had moved forward, but the domestic architecture of connectivity hadn’t kept pace.
The fibre shift: From capacity to capability (2015–2022)
The introduction of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) changed the scale and stability of home internet. Reliable high-speed connections enabled households to stream in 4K, engage in multi-user Zoom calls, game online, and operate smart appliances all simultaneously. Device density increased. Smartphones, smart TVs, laptops, and tablets became the norm across households. The broadband definition was also revised: from 512 Kbps in 2014 to 2 Mbps in 2024, aligning with evolving user expectations and application demands.
The growth in access during this decade was remarkable. India surged to over 950 million internet subscribers by 2024, a 279% increase. Rural connectivity has also gained momentum, with over 398 million users now located in non-urban areas. Average download speeds jumped from 4.18 Mbps in 2014 to 105.85 Mbps in 2024, a staggering 2,432% improvement. Yet a fundamental challenge remained: speeds at the source did not always translate to performance across the home. Signal loss through walls and over distances continued to impact user experience.
The Mesh movement: Networks that think
Today, we are witnessing a shift not just in technology but in architecture. Mesh Wi-Fi systems have replaced traditional single-router setups in many homes. These systems use multiple access points to create a distributed network, ensuring stable coverage in every room and across floors. The role of artificial intelligence within these systems is equally transformative. AI now helps map household layouts, learn traffic patterns, and prioritise usage based on demand. A work call and a streaming session can co-exist without degradation. Devices roam intelligently, and bandwidth adjusts dynamically. This evolution is particularly significant for multi-storey homes and work-from-home environments. Reliable internet access is no longer a convenience, it is an expectation.
Government efforts are keeping pace. Under the BharatNet initiative, 2.13 lakh gram panchayats have been made service-ready with optical fiber. The amended programme aims to extend connectivity to an additional 42,000 panchayats and 1.5 crore rural households. The future of digital infrastructure is being built from the village outward.
The takeaway: the home internet connection is no longer just a pipe — it is becoming a brain.
The future is contextual, not just connected
We are entering an era where the internet is moving beyond bandwidth to become an intelligent service layer. It’s no longer just about raw speed. It’s about responsiveness, consistency, and context. Smart homes are becoming the norm, not the exception. AI-powered networks can now route traffic based on real-time needs, anticipate peak usage hours, and optimise device performance. And with India’s growing digital footprint, the pressure is on to ensure that the quality of home connectivity matches the scale of adoption.
India’s internet story is no longer just about expansion. The numbers speak for themselves — nearly a billion subscribers, rural penetration nearing 400 million, and internet speeds increasing over multifolds in a decade. The next frontier isn’t coverage, it’s cognition. The home is now a digital hub for work, entertainment, education, and wellbeing. It demands a network that doesn’t just connect but understands. We’ve gone from waiting for the internet to arrive… to expecting it to anticipate us.
