Keeping the month of March as a benchmark, the download speeds of major telecom service providers have been lower in April due to nationwide lockdown and sudden increase in the number of users.
As per data from Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, TRAI, download speeds posted for April were lower than previous months, with Reliance Jio continuing to beat Vodafone and Airtel.
Jio’s average download speed stood at 13.3 Mbps in April, which is considerably lower than its 19.5 Mbps download speed in March. Vodafone’s average download speed of 5.6 Mbps in April was a small downgrade from its 6.7 Mbps download speed witnessed in March.
TRAI’s data revealed that Airtel remained in the third spot with 5.5 Mbps download speed in April, a marginal drop from its March speeds of 6.2 Mbps.
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WFH the reason?
Idea retained its number four spot but witnessed a nominal increase in speeds from 5.1 Mbps in March to 5.4 Mbps speed in April.
A sudden increase in the number of people working from home or using the internet for personal usage due to nationwide lockdown could have played a key role in further stressing the existing internet traffic.
Data on average download speeds of telcos in India is collected by TRAI via its MySpeed application and posted on a dedicated website. Users can check real-time download speeds of their 3G or 4G service providers located across the country.
Reliance Jio reigned supreme in 4G ‘Availability and Coverage Experience’, while Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea consistently improved upon their 4G availability.
With the advent of 5G, download and upload speeds are expected to become phenomenally high, although its deployment across India will take considerable amount of time.
