Airtel accounts for highest share of the market and was certainly one of the first companies to introduce 4G services for smartphone users in India. The company received a massive blow when Jio started offering free voice and data services in September 2016. And Airtel lost its crown to the latter in December.
Since the commencement of Jio’s operations, Airtel has introduced various schemes to hold onto its customers. And it seems like Airtel is successful in its endeavors as Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) named the company as the fastest 4G download speed provider.
Current numbers with Trai registered a speed of 11.862 Mbps for Airtel; while Jio offered a speed of 8.345 Mbps. The statistics with Trai also noted speeds for to be merged giants Vodafone and Idea providing speeds of 10.562 Mbps and 10.301 Mbps respectively. It might be due to excessive usage of free data services offered by Jio, which reduces the connection speed after crossing 1GB data limit.
The speed issues related to Jio’s might also be due to poor network coverage. However, Reliance Jio announced plans of pumping Rs. 30,000 crore into its telecom company in January, but no improvement has yet been witnessed.
The company grabbed the first position in December leaving behind arch rivals with a speed of 18.146 Mbps. While Jio had the top spot, Airtel dragged to the fourth place with a speed of 4.747 Mbps. Since then, Airtel has been on a mission to improve its services and channelize resources for the betterment of their network. Other telecom carriers, including Vodafone, Idea and Reliance Comm. provided a speed of 9.666 Mbps, 5.943 Mbps, and 2.686 Mbps respectively.
Viewing the present figures, Idea has significantly improved its 4G speed, almost doubled the rate offered. It is also possible Jio’s speed is impacted due to a sudden high flow of users in response to extension of its Happy New Offer.
Apart from Trai, a recent report by Credit Suisse stated Bharti Airtel offers a speed of 12 Mbps. The company is also planning to switch to VoLTE (Voice over Long-Term Evolution) in its prominent markets by the mid-2018. It will build the entire network for Airtel on a 4G spectrum.
