A latest report on Wednesday indicates that the median download speeds across India increased by a massive 115 per cent since the launch of 5G on October 1 last year as 5G roll-out picks up speed.
Massive Increase In Download Speed
To be specific, the median download speed increased from 13.87 Mbps in September to 29.85 Mbps in January 2023, as per the information provided by Ookla.
Here, Ookla is the global leader in network intelligence and connectivity insights.
This improvement has also affected India’s position on the Speedtest Global Index.
It improved by 49 places from 118th in September 2022 to 69th in January.
Basically, this data shows improvement in LTE speeds for both Jio and Airtel since the launch of 5G services.
It seems that all their investments into network modernisation are paying off with these improvements.
The report states, “When 5G was first launched in October 2022, there was a wide disparity in the early 5G network performance users were experiencing on 5G-capable devices,”.
Then the median 5G download speeds oscillated between 512.57 Mbps (Gujarat) and 19.23 Mbps (Uttar Pradesh West) due the unavailability of the 5G networks as it was not built.
During that time, the median 5G download speed was below 100 Mbps in the nine telecom circles which included Andhra Pradesh, Kolkata, North East, Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Punjab, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh West.
It was due to the fact that networks were very much at the testing stage.
Frutified 5G Investments
The report further noted, “Four months on, in January 2023, 5G median download speeds had greatly increased across all of the telecom circles” exceeding 200 Mbps everywhere except Jammu and Kashmir, with Kolkata clocking speeds over 500 Mbps.”
It can not be denied that the 5G investments made by the operators has also propelled an increase in 4G LTE speeds thanks to the modernization of the underlying infrastructure.
This is reflected in improved numbers for instance, median 5G download speed is 25 times that of 4G LTE (338.12 Mbps vs. 13.30 Mbps), and median 5G upload speed is 4.5 times 4G LTE (19.65 Mbps vs 3.55 Mbps).
The report further states “This must be caveated by the fact that these are still early days for 5G in India, and 5G performance will most likely decrease once those networks are commercially available,”.
