Airtel Tops 3G, 4G Speed Charts; Jio 4G LTE Speed Improves: OpenSignal

Bharti Airtel topped the chart when it came to average 4G LTE speed downloads in India.

Mumbai, October 6: Bharti Airtel tops the list of operators for average 4G LTE speed downloads in India. Airtel saw an average LTE downloads of 9.2 Mbps and 3G downloads of 3.6 Mbps on its networks while rival Reliance Jio saw its numbers improve, a recent report by OpenSignal reported. The 4G, 3G download speeds are calculated from June 1 to August 31, 2017 and the company says the data is based on over 700,000 devices. The report further mentions that it has measured sizable increases in Reliance Jio’s 4G speeds even while the speeds of its competitors declined.

OpenSignal’s overall speed metric takes into account both 3G and 4G speeds, as well as the level of access consumers, have to each service. When 4G LTE download speeds were tracked, Airtel offered 9.15Mbps download speed, Vodafone offered 7.45Mbps, Idea was third providing 7.4Mbps, and Jio finishing at fourth with 5.81Mbps. For 3G download speeds, Airtel topped the chart with 3.62Mbps, the came Vodafone at 3.12Mbps, the third spot was taken by Idea with 2.6Mbps, BSNL at 1.76Mbps speed, and Reliance Communications (RCom) at 1.71Mbps speed. Jio is a 4G-only network.

Here’s the Speed Check List:

(Image: OpenSignal)

Even as access to LTE improved for Airtel, Idea and Vodafone, their tested 4G speeds all declined. This is likely a result of the intense competition for 4G customers since Jio’s emergence. “LTE availability was up across the board, while 3G speeds nose-dived. The enormous demand for mobile data hasn’t abated, but the burden of that demand has spread to different networks. In our second State of Mobile Networks report for India, OpenSignal drew on more than 7 billion tests collected this summer from 708,504 mobile devices throughout India”, OpenSignal mentioned in its report.

(Image: OpenSignal)

Jio network’s 4G LTE speed improved during the period between June 1 and August 31 period, but it still remains behind incumbents Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular. Tracking the astonishing growth in Reliance Jio’s LTE speeds in the last six months, OpenSignal revealed that at 5.8 Mbps, Jio’s 4G speed score was still the lowest of the four national 4G operators, but because of Jio’s enormous LTE presence throughout India, it topped our overall speed charts. Jio’s already impressive LTE reach has gotten even better in the last six months. Though Jio was by far the market leader in 4G availability in our measurements, its three main rivals all made significant improvements in this metric as well.