Reliance Jio tops 4G availability, Airtel scores best speed: OpenSignal Report

Reliance Jio pipped its rivals in 4G availability and the mobile network operator was able to provide an LTE signal to testers more than 95 per cent of the time in every single region in India, a new report said on Wednesday.

With a download speed of 6 Mbps, Airtel emerged as the clear leader in OpenSignal's speed metrics across 4G providers in the country. 

London-based OpenSignal, which specialises in crowdsourced wireless coverage mapping all over the world, said that Jio won its national 4G availability award by at least 27 percentage points.

"Our testers were able to find an LTE signal on Jio's network 96.4 per cent of the time in our latest test period, up from 95.6 per cent in our October report," the report said.

"Jio remained the closest contender in overall speed due to its high level of 4G access. It was able to deliver typical everyday download speeds of 5.1 Mbps in our tests, compared to Airtel's 6 Mbps," it added.

Vodafone had the fastest mobile data connection response times and it got both 3G and 4G latency awards with the lowest ping scores. 

Lower latency means web pages load faster and consumers experience less lag time when using real-time communication apps like video chat. 

On the regional level, Vodafone and Idea made their mark in several circles. 

"Our results show Idea had the fastest 4G connections across Uttar Pradesh. Vodafone took our 4G speed awards in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Both were also tied for first place in speed in several other regions," the report showed.

While India is making big strides in 4G availability, the same thing can't be said about 4G speed. 

"Even the best LTE speed score in India was well below the global 4G download average of 16.9 Mbps recorded in our 'State of LTE' report," OpenSignal said.

In the "State of LTE" report, India moved into the 85th percentile in LTE availability where it joined high-performing 4G countries like Sweden, Taiwan and Australia.