Skip to content

Airtel beats Reliance Jio in 4G download speed as per OpenSignal

London based wireless network mapping company OpenSignal has revealed that Airtel has the fastest download speed among the four incumbent 4G operators in India. In its latest report, the company finds that Airtel has an average 4G download speed of 9.15Mbps, compared to Reliance Jio’s 5.81Mbps. The data points were collected from over 7 lakh users during the period of June and August.

To recall, OpenSignal had ranked Airtel the best in 4G download speed in India earlier in February as well. On the contrary, India’s telecom regulator, TRAI has consistently ranked Jio as the country’s fastest 4G network. However, recently, TRAI’s testing methodology has been doubted by telecom operators. So, the regular now plans to seek help from private firms like Ookla to improve its MySpeed app which measures the data speeds.

Coming to the OpenSignal’s report, despite being last in the 4G download speed, Reliance Jio has topped the overall download speed chart beating Airtel. Here are the main highlights from the company’s second State of Mobile Networks report.

Airtel tops 4G, 3G speed charts

Airtel has topped the 4G speed chart with an average 4G download speed of 9.15Mbps. Vodafone and Idea with 7.45Mbps and 7.4Mbps download speeds, respectively are at the second and third spot. While Reliance Jio which has a download speed of just 5.81Mbps ranked the last in 4G download speed.


Source: OpenSignal

Airtel has also topped the 3G speed chart as well with the download speed of 3.62Mbps. Vodafone grabs the second spot at 3.12Mbps and Idea was at third spot with 2.6Mbps 3G speed. State-run BSNL ha got the 4th spot in terms of 3G speed in India with 1.76Mbps speed.

Despite, topping the 4G speed chart, Airtel’s 4G speed has seen a decline from the last report, it drops from 11.5 Mbps to 9.1 Mbps. While Jio’s average 4G download speed, results were up from 3.9 Mbps to 5.8 Mbps. Reliance Jio’s 4G speeds have improved in the last six months after the free data offer ended in March, says the report.

Jio tops in Overall download speed

Even though Jio is the lowest of the four 4G operators, it has topped in overall download speed charts by averaging 5.81 Mbps speed. It beasts Airtel’s overall speed result of 5.05 Mbps. To recall, Airtel was on the top in Overall speeds as well in the OpenSignal’s first report.

Source: OpenSignal

Vodafone with an overall download speed of 4.06Mbps remains the third and Idea with 3.69Mbps is on the fourth spot. Operators with lower LTE availability tend to have lower overall speeds because their customers spend more time connected to slower 3G networks,’’ claims the report.

Jio tops in 4G availability; Idea, Vodafone, and Airtel improve

The report also says that Reliance Jio has the best LTE (4G) coverage with 95.6% availability across the country. Airtel ranked the last of OpenSignal charts. As per the report, Airtel customers were only able to find a 4G signal 57.2% of the time.

Source: OpenSignal

Interestingly, Idea cellular has got the second spot when it comes to 4G availability. Idea’s 4G availability was reported at 63.6% of the time. Vodafone India comes third with 61.72% of the time 4G availability.

However, Jio’s three main rivals made significant improvements in 4G availability metric as well despite the decline in 4G speeds. “Even as access to LTE improved for Airtel, Idea, and Vodafone, their tested 4G speeds all declined. This is likely a result of the intense competition for 4G customers since Jio’s emergence,’’ adds the report.

nv-author-image

Satyendra Pal Singh

Satyendra explores the latest happenings in the tech world and writes stories about those. He likes to play around with the latest gadgets and shares his views through articles. In his free time, you can find him watching movies/TV shows and/or reading books.