A week before the start of International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup 2023, a report by telecom analyst firm OpenSignal said Reliance Jio’s network download speeds at the stadiums are two times faster than that of Airtel and three-and-a-half times faster than Vodafone Idea.
While the average overall speeds for Jio is at 61.7 Mbps in the stadiums, the 5G download speeds of Jio network is seen at 334.5 Mbps, which is 25.5% faster than Airtel’s 5G speed of 274.5 Mbps, according to the report.
Airtel leads in the network-upload speeds across the stadiums, whereas Vodafone Idea network is expected to give a better performance with over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger. On 5G networks, however, Airtel takes the lead for the best experience with voice apps.
According to the report, Airtel average overall and 5G upload speeds were at 6.6 Mbps and 26.3 Mbps, respectively. The overall upload speeds on Airtel network are 5.2% higher than Jio, 13% higher than Vodafone Idea and 6.1 times higher than BSNL. When it comes to 5G, the average upload speeds on Airtel are 21.7% faster than Jio.
“Fast download and upload speeds are only helpful when you can latch onto an active cellular signal,” said Hardik Khatri, senior analyst at OpenSignal. Jio users will see the highest mobile network availability and 5G availability at the stadiums, the report said.
Jio 5G users can be seen spending more than 50% of their time with an active 5G signal, which is 2.6 times higher than Airtel.
With regard to voice app experience, Vodafone Idea leads with a score of 78.7, half a point higher than Airtel and 1.2 points greater than Jio. “With these scores, Airtel, Jio and Vodafone Idea are placed in the acceptable category (74-80) for voice app experience, while BSNL’s score of 70.8 points rates poor (66-74) — one rating lower than its peers,” Khatri said.
To assess the quality of live video streaming for users who will watch cricket matches on their phones, Opensignal said Airtel dominate the list in most of the 40 cities surveyed.
Airtel enjoys a leading position individually or jointly with other operators in 23 cities, whereas Jio tops the list in 22 cities and Vodafone Idea in 15 cities.
Any operator offering the best live video experience holds a competitive advantage, catering to the insatiable appetite for cricket in the nation, Khatri said. During the Indian Premier League (IPL), over 449 million smartphone users streamed the tournament online.
The ICC World Cup 2023 will commence on October 5. With India as the venue, the matches will be held across 10 stadiums in the country.