Broadband speed measurement firm Ookla on Thursday said it has found Bharti Airtel to be the fastest mobile broadband network, while speed on Reliance Jio network was the slowest in July. The report, compiled based on Speedtest Intelligence data collected by Ookla between August 2018 and July 2019, shows mobile broadband speed on the Vodafone Idea network has gradually improved. "Speedtest results show that mobile download speeds in India improved on average for all the top mobile operators throughout August 2018 - July 2019, with Airtel holding the title of fastest operator throughout these 12 months," the report said. In the fixed broadband side of things, JioFiber is said to have witnessed the largest increase in mean download speeds at 120.1% among top providers during the same period.
Ookla Speed Test Results Doesn't Match With Trai's Recent Report
The report is in contrast to data published by telecom regulator Trai. The data compiled by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India shows Reliance Jio has consistently maintained the lead throughout the year in mobile broadband speed with more than double the speed of its nearest rival.
Ookla has measured the broadband performance of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio in the study. According to the Speedtest Intelligence data, mobile download speeds for both Airtel and Jio started a decline after May 2019 and continued through July 2019.
Meanwhile, Vodafone saw a decline in mean mobile speed from November 2018 through January 2019, after which they recovered and showed a year-on-year improvement of 23.6%, according to the report.
"Mobile download speeds on Idea improved in every month except December 2018, for a year-over-year improvement of 51.2%. In comparison, Airtel's download speed increased 7.7% during the same period and Jio's download speed went up 10.8%," the report said.
The speed chart in the report shows that data speed on Reliance Jio network declined after June and was taken over by data speed on the Idea network. Overall, the average mobile data download speed in India declined after May 2019, the report said.
JioFiber Witnesses Massive Improvement Over Other Providers
In the fixed-line segment, Ookla report found the highest increase in mean download speed on Jio network. "Jio saw the largest increase in mean download speed over fixed broadband among top providers during the past 12 months with a 120.1% increase. BSNL increased 74.2%, GTPL 32.1%, Airtel 23.8%, YOU Broadband 13.9%, and ACT Fibernet 12%," the report said.
In the fixed broadband segment, India moved to 70th position with average download speeds of 30.74 Mbps amongst all providers and impressive 27.80 Mbps upload speeds. The data collected by Ookla is also during July 2018 and July 2019. For the unaware, Reliance Jio announced its FTTH broadband segment back in July 2018 itself and the trial runs began in August 2018.
With JioFiber all set to commercially launch on September 5, we're expecting the fixed-line broadband speeds in India to rise even more, unlike the mobile broadband speeds. Almost all the broadband service providers in the country are now providing affordable 100 Mbps plans to lure more users on board. Reliance Jio confirmed that its JioFiber broadband plans with 100 Mbps base speed will start at around Rs 700. All the plans of JioFiber will be officially revealed on September 5.
