Video experience, 4G availability improves substantially in India: Report

Video experience and 4G availability scores have improved substantially in India, a report published on Thursday observed.

The report by OpenSignal, an independent global wireless coverage mapping company, released its November 2018 India: Mobile Network Experience Report for the period of three months spanning from June 1 to August 29, 2018, which said that measured India's telecom sector and major telecom operators on top-level metrics such as, 4G Availability, Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience, Latency Experience and overall Video Experience.

The report notes that mobile networks in India are getting "faster and faster", consumer habits are changing, and the thirst for video content is now shaping operator strategy. The report recognises Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea as the joint winners in the video experience category.

Reliance Jio bagged the 4G availability award in the report and Airtel managed to keep Download Speed Experience crown, while coming in on the second spot for 4G availability. According to the report, Vodafone Idea came out as the winner in the Upload Speed Experience category, averaging speeds of 2.88 Mbps.

Reliance Jio also won OpenSignal's Latency Experience award with an average score of 72.2 milliseconds(ms), an 8ms improvement on its closest rival. Latency refers to the delay users experience as data makes a round trip through the network: If the latency of your network is high, you’ll experience a lot more lag time. Lower latency scores mean web pages begin loading more quickly and real-time communications apps and online game experience less lag. 

Telecom sector has seen price disruptions since the entry of Reliance Jio in the market in 2016. This price war may subside in the coming days as Opensignal expects operators to move towards the tiered paid data models familiar in the rest of the mobile world. With the price war subsiding in the maturing market, India's operators may get a breathing space to focus on service quality.

For the report, OpenSignal analysed more than 10.5 billion measurements from 1.7 million devices during the 90-day period.