Bharti Airtel has topped among India's telecom service providers in the 4G LTE download speed, while new entrant and challenger Reliance Jio stands a distant fourth, according to a recent report by wireless coverage mapping firm OpenSignal. Compared with Airtel's average 4G speed of 11.5 Megabits per seconds (Mbps), Jio clocked a speed of 3.92 Mbps -- less than Bharti Airtel’s average 3G internet speed of 4.77 Mbps.
The OpenSignal report has found a wide range of disparity in terms of speed and consistency in different regions across the country. In terms of 4G download speed, Vodafone and Idea stand second and third, with internet speeds of 8.59 Mbps and 8.34 Mbps, respectively. In terms of 4G internet coverage reach, however, Reliance Jio appears to be the only 4G network offering a countrywide network availability. Reliance Jio enjoys a 91.57 per cent 4G network coverage in India, much higher than rivals. On this parameter, Airtel is a distant fourth, while Idea and Vodafone take the second and third spots, respectively.
Brendan Gill, chief executive officer (CEO) of OpenSignal, says that Mumbai has the fastest 4G speed. “We haven’t yet done a full geographic breakdown for India, but we have done some interesting regional analysis. We looked at the top 4G cities in India and found that although Mumbai had the fastest speed, Gujarat’s two biggest cities, including Ahmedabad, provided the most consistent access to LTE signals,” he told Business Standard.
Overall, India’s mobile data speeds continue to be quite low. The fastest average speeds measured by Opensignal -- 11.6 Mbps on Airtel’s LTE network -- is much lower than the average global 4G download speed of 17.4 Mbps.
Bharti Airtel also topped the charts in overall internet speed test, taking into account the average download speed experienced by users on 4G LTE, 3G and 2G networks. Its average overall speed of 6.15 Mbps was much higher than Vodafone's 5.13 Mbps, Idea's 4.16 Mbps, Reliance Jio's 3.92 Mbps, BSNL's 3.41 Mbps and Reliance Communications' 2.63 Mbps.