Opensignal has released its latest report on mobile network experience of customers on the network of Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance Jio and BSNL in India.
Smartphone customers enjoy the best Video Experience on Airtel’s mobile network. Airtel maintained its lead and upgraded its rating from Fair (40-55) to Good (55-65), the report said.
Vodafone also joined Airtel in the Good rating category. Smartphone customers recorded the highest increase on Vodafone’s telecom network, as the operator boosted its score to close the gap on the market leader.
Smartphone customers on Airtel and Vodafone mobile networks experience faster video load times and fewer interruptions during playback while streaming videos on their smartphone using mobile data services.
Reliance Jio and Idea have received Fair ratings. A Fair rating indicate that phone users face sluggish load times and frequent stalling, most notably on higher resolutions. Meanwhile, the Video Experience observed by users on the 3G-only network, BSNL, remained in the Poor category.
Airtel won the award in in Voice App Experience category. Airtel boosted its score to push it from a Poor rating into an Acceptable rating, and to overtake Vodafone for first place.
Idea, Jio and Vodafone remained in the Poor rating bracket. This means that users’ Voice App Experience on these networks will be marred by frequent distortion, clicking sounds or silence experienced during the call.
Opensignal’s Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger, etc.
Airtel won Download Speed Experience award. The report said rivals Vodafone and Idea have begun whittling away at its sizable lead. Vodafone and Idea’s download speeds grew by a little more than 1.5 Mbps to 9.5 Mbps and 9.2 Mbps, respectively.
Airtel’s Download Speed Experience grew by almost half a megabit. Airtel still has a slight lead, but if this trend in download speed growth continues, Airtel will soon be challenged by one of its rivals for this metric, the report said.
Jio was relatively far behind at 7.3 Mbps, and BSNL took the last spot with 2.9 Mbps due to its 3G-only capabilities.
Vodafone won the award in this category with an overall Upload Speed Experience score of 3.9 Mbps. Vodafone and Idea continue to have a fairly comfortable lead — nearly 24 percent faster than Airtel, 42 percent faster than Jio, and three times faster than BSNL.
Upload speed is becoming increasingly important in mobile services, as social media, social sharing and video chat apps become more widely used. Mobile users are moving away from content consumption to content creation, which gives operators with the fastest upload speeds a distinct advantage.
Airtel has won Latency Experience award with an average response time of 54.1 milliseconds, while Jio trailed closely behind at 56.3ms, but its users average response time worsened by 2.1ms.
Vodafone users observed the highest improvement of 3.6ms to score 60.6ms. Latency Experience measures the response time of a network (the lower the score the better), and it is a key factor in determining how real-time communications and gaming applications perform on mobile connections.
Jio has dominated the 4G Availability in India. Reliance Jio won the award with a score of 98.2 percent. Jio also won 4G Coverage Experience award in India, while Airtel finished second with 6.8 points. Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience metric is a measure of how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network.
