Reliance Jio, the only Indian telecom operator that has deployed 5G SA (standalone) network is actually delivering the best download speeds globally where SA networks are concerned. The data comes from Ookla's latest report for Q4 2024. In the report, Ookla mentioned that in terms of 5G SA availability, these were the top nations in the world - China (80%), India (52%), and the United States (24%).
In terms of median download speed, India led amongst all the countries with 5G SA with 260.71 Mbps in Q4 2024. This was higher than China's 224.82 Mbps, Japan's 254.18 Mbps, and Europe's 221.17 Mbps. However, the median latency in India was 52.24 ms and upload speed was 15.69 Mbps for the SA networks, relatively less competitive, said Ookla.
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Ookla said that globally, 5G SA networks are delivering signficantly improved peroformance across key metrics compared to the 5G NSA (non-standalone) networks.
Firstly, in Q4 2024, Ookla found that median download speeds on 5G SA were 31% more than the 5G NSA networks in India. At the same time, with 5G SA, the latencies were 20% lower than in 5G NSA networks in China and Europe and over 25% lower in the US and Japan.
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In India, only Reliance Jio is offering 5G SA network to mobile customers. While Bharti Airtel is deploying 5G SA, Airtel is only focusing on the FWA (Fixed-Wireless Customers) for that. Airtel will shift to 5G SA for mobile networks when there are capacity constraints on the 5G NSA. Mobile users in India are still slowly upgrading to 5G phones, and now there are more affordable options available in the market.
Given that there are issues with monetising 5G networks, Airtel doesn't want to invest as much money as Jio did into 5G SA networks at this stage.
