Jio pips Airtel on 4G download speed chart, Idea aces upload speed

Reliance Jio continued to top the chart for 12 consecutive months even though there was a decline in the 4G download speed by about 8 per cent in December. The network recorded an average upload speed of 18.7 megabit per second (mbps) in December as against the speed of 20.3 mbps in November, according to a date published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on MySpeed Portal. Bharti Airtel came second with a download speed of 9.8 mbps followed by Vodafone with 6.3 mbps and Idea Cellular’s 6 mbps. Vodafone and Idea Cellular have merged to become one entity but as both the brands exist separately, the data speeds have been reported separately by Trai.

Performance of Bharti Airtel’s 4G network marginally improved in December to 9.8 mbps from 9.7 mbps in November. The 4G download speed on Vodafone network declined slightly to 6.3 mbps from 6.8 mbps in November, while that of Idea dipped to 6 mbps from 6.2 mbps.

When it comes to 4G upload speed, Idea, however, continued to top the chart despite a decline in network performance. The upload speed on Idea network declined to 5.3 mbps in December from 5.6 mbps in November.

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The download speed plays an important role when a user watches any video, browse the internet, access e-mails; and a good upload speed is required when a user wants to share data such as images, videos and any other files through e-mail or social media applications. As per open signal, a company which specialises in wireless coverage mapping, smartphone users are moving away from downloading and consuming to uploading and creating content, meaning upload speeds are becoming more important to the mobile.

Vodafone continued to show improvement and recorded increase in upload speed at 5.1 mbps in December from 4.9 mbps in November.

Jio upload speed declined to 4.3 mbps in December from 4.5 mbps in November. Airtel, too, recorded marginal dip in upload speed at 3.9 mbps from 4 mbps during the months under review.

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Both Jio and Idea have continued to maintain their leadership in their respective segments for the past several months. The average speed is computed by Trai based on data it collects with help of its MySpeed application on a real-time basis. 

(With PTI inputs)