Vodafone launched 4G LTE service in Delhi/NCR on 3rd of February 2016. The company used its recently bought 1800MHz wave to offer this 4G (LTE-FDD) service to its consumers with a motto of providing a superior experience. I have been using the service on my primary SIM, for almost a month now. In this article, I bring to you my initial impressions of the service.
Coverage: For starters, I had high expectations since Vodafone engaged 1800 MHz spectrum. In Gurgaon, I have roamed around a variety of places such as Cyber City, Railway station road, MG Road, Sector 14, to Airport and got almost blanket coverage. When compared with my Vodafone 3G connection, which used to get latched with 2G network many times a day at my office (MG Road) and my residence (DLF Phase 3). After using Vodafone 4G service, it seems, I finally got a refuge of that annoying issue.
Speed Test: Here is the second highlight, which I wouldn't call impressive, at least for my area. I never received more than 12-13 Mbps speed till date. I admit a large number of data-heavy users live here; concurrent usages may affect the throughput, which may result in lower speed. But at this very initial stage, there should not be many 4G users compared to 3G users per BTS. So, I think Vodafone should look into this if they are not capping speed intentionally at this stage. The device I used here is Moto G3 and the tests have been conducted at the MG Road of Gurgaon.
The 4G speed is dismal in DLF Phase 3(U Block) area. In the past 20 days, I conducted many speed tests but never received more than 3-4 Mbps of bandwidth. Vodafone really needs to optimize their 4G network in this particular area.
Call Quality: Vodafone does not use VoLTE in their 4G network as of now. The company relies on CSFB (Circuit Switch Fall Back) technology – which simply means that if you receive/make any call you would be shifted to 3G/2G network at that moment. However, on a brighter side, it works pretty smooth. I did not experience any call related issues.
Conclusion: At the end of the day, it serves my purposes as I am not a very data hungry user. I check mails, browse SMS, use messengers and it ticks for me. Yes, you would be right to conclude that for a user like me, 3G connections can make do. But in my opinion, I would say that Vodafone 4G has got enough potential to deliver high-speed internet with low latency (as you can see sub 50 ms ping was there in the last screenshot), which seems promising, at least, to me.
If you are using Vodafone 4G in Delhi/NCR, do let us know about your experience via comments.
