We all know that telecom operators in India rival each other in the tariff plans segment, but what we don't know is they always compete in other areas such as network speeds, 4G availability and so on. However, to show the results, telcos rely on third-party services like Trai or OpenSignal or Ookla or other network testing services. OpenSignal has now released its "Mobile Network Experience Report October 2019," in which it revealed a lot of details regarding the service provided by the telecom operators in India. Going by the report, Bharti Airtel now has an impressive 89.2% 4G availability, which is up by 3.6% compared to the last report from OpenSignal. That said, Reliance Jio is still leading the 4G availability chart with an overall 4G availability of 97.8%. But in other aspects, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea trump Jio to take the crown. Read onto know more in which segments Jio lost the battle to incumbents.
Bharti Airtel Still Offers Best 4G Download Speeds in India
The data from OpenSignal was collected between June 1, 2019, to August 29, 2019; A total of 10,617,219,452 measurements were made during the period, confirmed OpenSignal. Besides Trai, all the other network measurement providers rated Airtel as the fastest 4G operator in the country. And the new OpenSignal report says the same. Bharti Airtel has an average 4G download speed of 9.6 Mbps and it's followed by Vodafone with 7.9 Mbps. Reliance Jio is third on the list with an average 4G download speed of 6.7 Mbps. As for the upload speeds, Idea continues to lead the chart with an average speed of 3.2 Mbps, followed by Vodafone and Airtel with speeds of 3.1 Mbps and 2.4 Mbps, respectively. Reliance Jio is fourth on the list with a mere 2.1 Mbps average upload speed.
Reliance Jio managed to beat other networks in the Latency Experience department. According to the new OpenSignal report, Reliance Jio users enjoyed the fastest network response time of 54.2 milliseconds. Airtel missed the top spot by a difference of 3ms, whereas Vodafone and Idea achieved scores of 64.2 and 74.5ms respectively. BSNL received the slowest Latency Experience of 80.6ms.
Vodafone Offers the Best VoIP Calling Experience
In this new report, OpenSignal has introduced a new category called 'Voice App Experience,' which basically tests the voice calling experience in VoIP apps like WhatsApp, Skype, Google Duo and Facebook Messenger. According to OpenSignal, these VoIP apps are changing the way billions of people communicate with each around the world. And the performance of these apps certainly contributes to customer’s overall satisfaction with their network provider.
OpenSignal tested Voice App Experience across 80 countries and India ranked in the lower part of the chart with a poor rating, something that's expected considering the very less 4G availability of Vodafone Idea and the lack of entire 4G services from BSNL. The report says Vodafone users enjoy the best Voice App Experience with a score of 72.6 points out of 100. While the score is on the lower end of the spectrum compared to other markets, it's the best score achieved by a telecom operator in India. Idea, Airtel, and Jio also lined up in the same bracket, with scores of 72.3, 72.0 and 70.9 points respectively. A Poor rating signifies that many users were dissatisfied and suffered call quality impairments accompanied by distortions. BSNL was the only operator to land a Very Poor rating, with a score of 61.6 points.
As mentioned, this new report from OpenSignal is for the period between June 1, 2019, to August 29, 2019. The next report from the company will come out sometime in the latter half of December.
