New Delhi: After 5G was launched in India on October 1, 2022, the average mobile download speed has increased by a whopping 115%.
A report by the global leader in network intelligence and connectivity insights Ookla said the median download speed increased from 13.87 Mbps in September 2022 to 29.85 Mbps in January 2023. On the Speedtest Global Index, India's position has improved by 49 places from 118th to 69th.
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, said the report. Now, according to the data, there is an improvement in LTE speeds for both Jio and Airtel. It suggests that their investments in network modernisation are paying off.
When the 5G networks buildout started, the download speeds were between 512.57 Mbps (Gujarat) and 19.23 Mbps (Uttar Pradesh West). The speed was below 100 Mbps in nine telecom circles - Andhra Pradesh, Kolkata, North East, Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Punjab, Kerala, and Uttar Pradesh West. In four months, the speed has greatly increased in all nine circles and exceeded 200 Mbps. Kolkata has a speed of over 500 Mbps. Jammu and Kashmir is the only exception.
The modernisation of underlying telecom infrastructure has also led to an increase in 4G LTE speeds due to 5G investments made by the operators. The 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 said the improvement is caused by the fact that these are still early days for 5G in India. "5G performance will most likely decrease once those networks are commercially available."