Indian ISP DEN Broadband will expand its internet services to 100 cities across India. DEN has already started its first phase of broadband coverage in 15 cities after the pilot project in five cities.

DEN Broadband will enable 1.1 crore Indian households with high-speed broadband services by 2020. DEN Broadband offers broadband speeds of up to 1Gbps. The target states will be UP, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, among others.

DEN has built the fixed broadband infrastructure using a mix of GPON/FTTX and Metro Ethernet technologies enabling download speeds from 20 Mbps till 1 Gbps. DEN is planning a Capex investment of nearly Rs 100 crore over the next 3 years for the broadband business.

DEN Networks CEO SN Sharma said: “This is a game changing moment for DEN and for the Internet users in the country. Our investment in transforming our co-ax cable trunk routes into fiber optics will now yield tangible results.”

DEN said its fiber cable infrastructure is already present across 13 major Indian states with a reach of over 13 million subscribers’ homes. DEN plans to roll out through a franchisee model. DEN is a national MSO with 14,000 plus cable LMO network.

DEN will bill the subscribers directly and collect tariffs from them directly. The franchisee would get paid based on their agreement and size of their investment.

India ranks 67th in fixed broadband speeds with an average download speed of 20.72 Mbps. Mobile broadband speeds lags at 109th rank with an average download speed of 9.01 Mbps, as per Ookla’s speedtest Global Index, Feb 2018 report.

Currently, about 6 percent Indian households have a fixed broadband connection in a market of 284 million households, while most leading developed nations have a market penetration of above 70 percent.