When existing telecom providers, such as Airtel and Vodafone, had just started extending their 4G LTE services in the nation, the telecom sector witnessed the rise of Reliance Jio and everything changed drastically.
The advent of the Mukesh Ambani-led telecom provider, who has signed up over 100 million subscribers, has been dramatic and has led India to be ranked 15th in terms of global 4G availability in OpenSignal’s newest report.
Called the ‘State of LTE,’ the said report mentions that India’s the availability of 4G LTE services in the nation witnessed a massive uptick from 71.6 percent in the third quarter to 81.6 percent in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2017. This London-based wireless coverage mapping company put together the report after extensive data collection from consumer smartphones across 75 countries under normal usage conditions.
Talking about this huge change, Brendan Gill, co-founder and CEO, OpenSignal, in a statement said:
India is one of the most dynamic and fast-changing mobile markets. The government and other stakeholders must continue to seize the immense opportunity and climb the global rankings across all parameters, to ensure high quality and consistent mobile experience for its 1 billion-plus mobile users.
The report, however, continues to assert that the growth of 4G LTE services in the nation has come at a price. India’s average speed has witnessed a drastic a megabit per second downfall in the last six odd months. The current average speed provided by 4G telecom carriers in India stands at approximately 5.1 Mbps, which is marginally faster than the average global 3G download speed, which is said to stand at 4.4 Mbps.
In terms of average speed, India was ranked 74th in the global representation, just ahead of Costa Rica. It is, however, shameful for a rapidly developing nation like India to have lost to its neighbors, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, in terms of average 4G speed. The global average LTE download speed is found to be around 16.2 Mbps, way higher than India’s average.
While OpenSignal’s report emphasizes on Jio’s advent in the nation as a boon for the country’s telecom sector, which has led to an intense competition among relaxed carriers. The cut-throat rivalry has, however, taxed the company’s network coverage and driven down download speeds — in the process of onboarding as many netizens as possible via its free calling and data schemes. Speaking on the penetration of 4G LTE services in the nation, OpenSignal’s report mentions:
Most of that improvement can be attributed to a single operator: Reliance Jio. In our most recent India report, we measured Jio’s 4G availability at more than 90%, while the other major operators all fell below 60% availability in our tests.
Ïndia shot up our LTE availability rankings, reflecting a rare instance in which a single operator can have an outsized impact on a mobile market in just a short time.
