While LTE availability saw a rapid rise but sadly 4G speeds saw a drastic drop in India as per a report by Open Signal. The report further highlights that when all the operators were struggling with providing decent 4G speeds Reliance Jio was able to increase the data speed by 49 percent.
As per the April report of OpenSignal, Jio had the slowest 4G speed in India but as soon as Jio’s freebie plan ended in April 2017, data speeds went to 5.8 Mbps from 3.9 Mbps. It may be recalled Jio’s market entry kicked off an intense price war in the telecom scene resulting in offerings of cheaper LTE services from all operators, driving more consumers to 4G than ever before.
If we talk about the current scenario, India is ranked at 109th position in the mobile internet speed globally, according to latest data from Ookla’s November Speedtest Global Index. Interestingly, India has gained 76th rank for fixed Broadband speed globally.
According to Ookla, the average mobile download speed at the start of 2017 was just 7.65Mbps, while at the end of the year (until November) there was an incremental update to 8.80 Mbps. On the other hand, the fixed broadband speed increased from 12.12 Mbps in January to 18.82 Mbps until November, registering a jump of almost 50 percent.
As of November, Norway ranks first in the world for mobile internet with an average download speed of 62.66 Mbps. Singapore takes the top spot for fixed broadband with a 153.85 Mbps average download. The data shows that India is yet to cover a really long road to match and deliver respectable mobile internet speed as compared to other countries.
Despite, many operators luring customers to switch to 4G networks with affordable pricing and more data, the speed in one issue that has been consistent in the country. The first and foremost reason behind such a difference in internet speed is the lack of infrastructure available in the country.
Only handful of operators like Reliance Jioare able to provide 4G networks in all the circles. However, once again the problem of last mile connectivity is pretty grave in the country. Coupled this with the fact that operators are not able to handle congestion issue, which has resulted in a decrease in average download speed across the board.
The low-cost data plans have massively increased the 4G subscriber base in India, but this also resulted in network congestion, which in turn in hindering the internet speed. According to a report by OpenSignal, India has occupied the lowest spot among the 77 countries they examined, with average download speeds of 6.1 Mbps, over 10 Mbps lower than the global average. Secondly, the 4G adoption is pretty much slow from the operator sides as well. We already know that the likes of BSNL do not really have ventured into the 4G network space and it has been already criticized for offering sub-par services as compared to other operators in India.
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular are also not able to provide better 4G services to its customers, with Airtel being the worst affected. According to the latest data released by TRAI, Airtel scored the lowest download and upload speed in the country, which is kind of shameful as the brand has touted itself to be ‘the fastest network’.
The same is the case with broadband. Despite many companies like ACT Fibernet or Spectranet offering a download speed of 1GBps in some areas, but in most cases, the average download speed in only around 18 Mbps. BSNL being one of the largest broadband players in the industry has not able to provide better services to its customers and the after-sales support is relatively poor in most of the regions. India is being touted as the fastest growing mobile markets in the world, but with lack of infrastructure and inefficiency of handling network congestion, there is a lot to be desired.