Reliance Jio's disruption in the Indian telecom industry has forced other telcos to change their practices and follow suit with affordable 4G tariffs. This has helped India scale up its LTE landscape enormously, but 4G speeds in the country haven't matched global standards.
Even so, there are some cities in India that have 4G speeds reaching as high as 8.7Mbps.
According to OpenSignal's latest report, which ranks 20 Indian cities on the basis of their average 4G speeds between December 2017 and February 2018, Navi Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata top the charts.
The average 4G speeds registered in Navi Mumbai reached 8.72Mbps, while Chennai doubled its 4G speed to 8.52Mbps from 4.4Mbps in March 2017. Kolkata, which ranked third in the list, was a close third at 8.46Mbps. Check out the full list of cities and their respective 4G speeds:
Navi Mumbai – 8.72Mbps
Chennai – 8.52Mbps
Kolkata – 8.46Mbps
Bangalore – 7.17Mbps
Mumbai – 6.97Mbps
Hyderabad – 6.71Mbps
Delhi – 6.69Mbps
Bhopal – 6.37Mbps
Nagpur – 6.33Mbps
Chandigarh – 6.21Mbps
Pune – 6.18Mbps
Jaipur – 6.07Mbps
Ahmedabad – 5.83Mbps
Ghaziabad – 5.75Mbps
Pimpri-Chinchwad – 4.93Mbps
Surat – 4.76Mbps
Kanpure – 4.64Mbps
Patna – 4.62Mbps
Lucknow – 4.32Mbps
Allahabad – 3.5Mbps
Even though OpenSignal was quick to note that Allahabad ranks the last in the current report, it doesn't mean it has the slowest 4G connectivity in the country.
"Driven by fierce competition, the Indian 4G market is growing rapidly, and the country now has one of the largest LTE footprints in the world. The shockwaves from the debut of Reliance Jio are still being felt, with no less than three mobile mergers on the table, meaning the fastest 4G city rankings are likely to change significantly in the coming months," Peter Boyland, an analyst at the firm, wrote in the report Wednesday.
India has the slowest 4G speeds in the world
If 4G speeds in India seem impressive, global 4G speeds are likely to make you feel dizzy.
India ranks 14th in the 4G availability chart with 86.26 percent availability, which is a good sign. But India's average 4G speeds put the country at the bottom of the chart, a recent OpenSignal report revealed.
With an average speed of just 6.07 Mbps, India is placed below countries like Algeria (8.65 Mbps), Indonesia (8.92 Mbps), the Philippines (9.49 Mbps), and Thailand (9.60 Mbps).
The country with the fastest 4G speed in the world is Singapore, with a whopping 44.31Mbps.
On the heels of 5G rollout
Even as 4G speeds in India struggle to match those of other countries, 5G tests are already being conducted in the country.
According to the live speed test conducted by Ericsson last November, the speed achieved was a whopping 5.7Gbps with an ultra-low latency of 3 milliseconds — almost a thousand times more than the current average.
