According to a report by OpenSignal, Bharti Airtel topped the overall mobile download speeds at 13.6 Mbps on average in India, which were 0.3-0.6 Mbps faster than the speeds users saw on Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi) and Reliance Jio, and 10.6 Mbps faster than on last-placed Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
As per the report, Airtel holds an edge when it comes to quality of experience (QoE) across Indian mobile networks. Airtel users enjoyed the best available experience when streaming videos, playing multiplayer mobile games or using over-the-top (OTT) voice services over mobile networks. As a result, Airtel emerged as the outright winner of Opensignal’s video experience, games experience and voice app experience awards.
Meanwhile, Jio won three awards in the coverage section. The telco was named the outright winner of the availability and 4G availability awards, as Indian users were able to spend the highest proportion of time (99.4 per cent) connected to mobile broadband services on Jio’s 4G network. Jio also won the 4G coverage experience award, as Jio users connected to 4G in the largest proportion of locations visited by Indian users, that is, 95 of 100 locations. Airtel was placed second across all three categories, followed by Vi and BSNL.
Further, Jio won the excellent consistent quality award, with a score of 62.6 per cent, 8.4 points ahead of Airtel. Also, Jio won the core consistent quality award with a score of 85.7 per cent with a similar lead of 8.8 points over Airtel. Consistent quality quantifies how often users’ network experience was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements. The excellent consistent quality uses thresholds for more demanding applications than does core consistent quality.
Vi emerged as the winner of the upload speed experience award, as its users observed the fastest overall upload speeds across India, averaging 4.7 Mbps, 0.5-0.7 Mbps faster than Airtel and Jio. On the other hand, the upload speed experience on BSNL lagged significantly behind with 1.1 Mbps.
OpenSignal arrived at the above conclusions after assessing the mobile network experience of consumers across four main mobile network operators in India, over a period of 90 days starting June 1, 2022, and ending on August 29, 2022, evaluating performance nationally as well as in 22 telecom circles.
