Network which claims to be the fastest in India actually ranks 147th globally by download speeds

rickenjus

In the zone
Bharti Airtel the largest operator by subscriber base in India has been in the news lately due to its boastful advertising of being the operator with the fastest network in India. Airtel has put up an open challenge where it offers to pay the lifetime bills of anyone who demonstrates a network faster than its own. But in the global perspective where exactly does Airtel stand with its network? and what would be the outcome if it made this claim at the international level?

An independent study of networks conducted by OpenSignal which took into consideration the data obtained by testing 183 individual LTE networks across 68 countries reveals to us the findings for the third quarter of 2015. According to the study India ranks 54th with respect to the average speed of LTE network and Airtel ranks 147th globally with respect to the average download speed which was tested to be just 10 Mbps. In comparison the average 4G speeds in New Zealand are 36 Mbps followed by Singapore at 33 Mbps.

OpenSignal employs their proprietary testing parameter which they call ‘Time coverage’ percentage which measures the percentage of time for which a subscriber is connected to the LTE network. The higher this percentage the more steady a network’s coverage in considered. India ranked 52nd with respect to the time coverage parameter and Airtel ranked 139th globally with just 50% time coverage score. In comparison South Korea ranks first with 97% time coverage followed by Japan with 90% time coverage.

So to conclude, if Airtel had put up this challenge at the global level, they would have had to shell out a massive amount paying the bills of millions of subscribers with better and faster 4G networks across the globe. Now Airtel may in its defense say that it’s not fair to compare its network with those across the globe, since every country has its own regulatory framework and that spectrum assets are more freely available in one country compared to another, We would then like to say it’s equally unfair comparing its own LTE network to the HSPA networks of other operators in India, much like comparing apples to oranges. Wait for the wide scale LTE rollouts by Reliance Jio and Aircel and then put up these network challenges.


*telecomtalk.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-State-of-LTE-September-2015-OpenSignal.png

Source - here
 
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tkin

Back to school!!
What about cost per Megabyte? That's the important bit here. For unlimited broadband divide price by total possible download per month(mbps/8)x3600x24x30.
 

Nerevarine

Incarnate
Wait for the wide scale LTE rollouts by Reliance Jio and Aircel and then put up these network challenges.
Exactly +10, couldnt have said it better..
Airtel is a massive douchebag for comparing speeds with others.. Just because they were the first to roll out 4G, doesnt mean they are entitled to 4G God status.. Im 100% sure they will back off this "promise" when Reliance Jio or other 4G services starts ..
Besides what's the freaking point of 4G when there is a data limit for like 1 GB lol
 

tkin

Back to school!!
I don't feel good about reliance. Bunch of cheaters. My sister got a 3g dongle. Gave good speed for 4/5 months. Then it went to hell. At the end of first year it slowed down to 2g speeds. Let's wait for jio. I'd pass the judgement after one year from rollout. The ambanis didn't get rich by giving away money. They'll squeeze as much as possible from the market just like airtel.
 

thetechfreak

Legend Never Ends
Another thread where we flame how internet is sad here... :(
Wait, India is above US of A? As per the chart in first post?

If you look closer you'd see that the values are actually same for LTE speeds. So they're just the same.
 

ariftwister

Truth Seeker
I don't feel good about reliance. Bunch of cheaters. My sister got a 3g dongle. Gave good speed for 4/5 months. Then it went to hell. At the end of first year it slowed down to 2g speeds. Let's wait for jio. I'd pass the judgement after one year from rollout. The ambanis didn't get rich by giving away money. They'll squeeze as much as possible from the market just like airtel.

Same here.. Not even using anymore because its not even usable with such low speed..
 
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