India’s newest mobile operator Reliance Jio Infocomm had the fastest average download speeds during March by a wide margin, according to the latest figures by regulator Trai.
Jio recorded an average download speed of 16.48Mbps for the quarter, roughly double that of rivals Idea Cellular (8.33Mbps) and Bharti Airtel (7.66Mbps).
As a 4G-only operator Jio has an inherent advantage in terms of average download speeds.
Vodafone meanwhile recorded average download speeds of 5.66Mbps, compared to 2.64Mbps for Reliance Communication, 2.52Mbps for Tata DoCoMo, 2.26Mpbs for BSNL and 2.01Mbps for Aircel, Trai’s figures indicate.
But the findings of the debut report from wireless coverage mapping company OpenSignal into the state of the Indian mobile market appear to contradict the official figures.
OpenSignal’s analysis indicates that Airtel tops the rankings in terms of average 4G, 3G and overall speeds. The company measured Airtel’s average LTE download speed of 11.5Mbps, and said that both Vodafone and Idea have faster average speeds than Jio, which scored a mere 3.92Mbps.
But Jio topped the rankings in terms of LTE availability, finding that testers on Jio’s network were able to find a 4G signal 91.6% of the time. No other Indian operator scored higher than 60%.