India might be flourishing as one of the largest consumers of 4G data in the world but the picture isn’t pretty when it comes to 4G LTE speeds!
A recent report by UK-based wireless coverage mapping experts, OpenSignal, puts India behind Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as one of the slowest countries in terms of 4G LTE speeds for the month of February, 2018.
India is currently languishing at the bottom of the list with the slowest 4G LTE speed of 6.07 Mbps among 88 countries. Countries like Pakistan are above India with 4G LTE speeds of 13.56 Mbps while Sri Lanka has 13.95 Mbps average download connection speed.
Though the above numbers are more shocking than disappointing, there are some figures to look forward to as far as availability of 4G signals is concerned.
Where India lacks in speed, it compensates in reach. Currently, India acquires the 14th position in the list of 4G availability with an increased 86.26 percent coverage of 4G across the country.
Last year in November, India was in the 11th position with 84.03 percent coverage area. The credit for the increase can be attributed to the Reliance Jio wave that’s swept across the country. Although, on the flip side, the falling data rates have attracted many 4G users and that has lead to more network congestion, resulting in India’s poor performance on the global scale.
Also Read: India is Making up for Slow 4G Speed in Other Ways
There are multiple factors which determine how fast a country's 4G speed can be. How much spectrum is devoted to LTE, whether the country has adopted new 4G technologies like ‘LTE Advanced’, how densely networks are built and how much congestion is on those networks are some of the factors which affect the network speed in a country.
Relatively, nations with the fastest speed tend to be the ones that have built LTE-Advanced networks and have a large proportion of LTE-Advanced capable devices. India still struggles in this department.
“Meanwhile, the bottom ranks in our speed chart feature several countries with large populations — and therefore large mobile subscriber bases — that bring down the global 4G average. For instance, India and Indonesia both averaged 4G downloads below 10 Mbps”—the report said
Mobile tariffs in countries like South Korea and Singapore remain very high because of which there is less congestion resulting in higher speed consistently.
India’s current 4G structure is in dire straights and really requires an extensive overhaul if we are to see any betterment in average download speeds. With an estimate of 90 percent Indian users to gain access to the internet by 2020, good 4G speeds is going to be a necessity rather a requirement.
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