Airtel tops 4G speeds in India, Reliance Jio sees 4G speeds rise: OpenSignal

OpenSignal India Internet Speeds report for June to August 2017: Airtel on top, but Reliance Jio is catching up.

Airtel was still the number one operator when it came to average 4G LTE speed downloads in India, even as rival Reliance Jio saw its numbers improve, according to OpenSignal’s latest report for the market. OpenSignal’s latest report on 4G, 3G download speeds is from the period of June 1 to August 31, 2017 and the company says the data is based on over 700,000 devices.

According to OpenSignal’s report, the 4G connectivity in India still sees an intense battle between two players, which is Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. However, the newcomer’s speeds have gone up dramatically in the past couple of months. Open Signal’s report indicate the reason for this jump is the the end of the free data offers on Reliance Jio network after the month of March 2017.

In terms of overall rankings for 3G and 4G speeds Airtel is still on top of the market. Airtel scored 9.15 Mbps in the download average speeds for 4G networks, while rival Jio had 5.81 Mbps speeds. Vodafone was number two with 7.45 Mbps average speeds. In this metric, OpenSignal calculates the average download speed for each operator on LTE connections as measured by their users.

However, in the download overall speed metric Reliance Jio emerges on top even though the speeds remain at 5.81 Mbps. Airtel is second at 5.05 Mbps with Vodafone scoring 4.06 Mbps. According to OpenSignal, this particular metric includes the 3G and 4G experience together, which explains Jio’s higher ranking since it is not on the 3G network base at all.

According to OpenSignal, the overall speed “doesn’t just factor in 3G and LTE speeds, but also the availability of each network technology.” The company says operators with lower LTE availability tend to have lower overall speeds since customers are also on 3G speeds. It adds that while Jio doesn’t have the fastest LTE speeds, it has “delivered the fastest overall mobile data experience,” based on the data they have collected.

When it comes to overall download speeds, Jio is on top.

According to OpenSignal, they’ve also seen an improvement in Jio’s 4G speeds from April onward with the end of the free data party. Jio’s average 4G speeds rose from 3.9 Mbps to 5.8 Mbps, which is 49 per cent increase, notes the report. While Airtel, Vodafone and Idea remain ahead of Jio in terms of overall 4G speeds, according to OpenSignal survey, they have seen a fall in speeds.

OpenSignal says they “measured the biggest decline in 4G speed on Airtel, falling from 11.5 Mbps to 9.1 Mbps,” even as Vodafone and Idea saw their speeds drop by a megabit each. According to OpenSignal, the Jio effect is at play here as well, since all three players are now offering data at lower rates to customers, thus causing more congestion on their networks.

In the overall rankings, Airtel leads in 4G and 3G speed awards with average downloads of 9.2 Mbps and 3.6 Mbps respectively, while Idea and Vodafone continue the second place fight. Interestingly the report also states, Airtel might have the fastest 4G still but overall Jio provides a more consistent and faster mobile data experience.

Airtel is the telecom operator which leads in 4G speed downloads in India.

The report adds 4G LTE reach is growing and improving in India and three of the operators have 4G in 60 per cent of the country. When it comes to 4G availability, Reliance Jio LTE leads with users able to connect to the network 95.6 per cent of the time. Airtel was in the bottom in the availability charts with users able to find a 4G signal only 57.2 per cent of the time.

Still the overall picture of 4G in India is still quite bad, and the dependence on 3G connectivity remains. The study reads, “No operator we tested in India exceeded either the global 3G download average of 4.4 Mbps or the global 4G download average of 16.2 Mbps that we measured in our last State of LTE report.” In fact OpenStudy says it saw BSNL’s 3G speed fall as did the speeds from all five national operators.

So yes, while operators are busy fighting over speed claims in India, the fact remains that when it comes to global standards, the market remains an under performer by far.