Bharti Airtel remains the preferred operator for users when it comes to watching videos or making calls on apps like WhatsApp, while Reliance Jio continues to dominate in 4G coverage and availability, mobile analytics firm Opensignal has said in its latest report.
In terms of download speed, Airtel tops the list, while Vodafone Idea leads in upload speed. Opensignal examined the mobile network experience of the four mobile operators in the country — Airtel, BSNL, Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) — over a period of 90 days from May 1 to July 29, 2020, to see how they fared. The firm further compared the experience of users in the 49 largest cities of the country. Opensignal has an active user base of 8,555,507 devices.
In terms of video, users said they had a ‘good’ experience on Airtel, while Vi and Jio had to settle for the next best rating of ‘fair’. BSNL was rated ‘poor’. Airtel also topped the list in terms of voice app experience, with a score of 75.5 out of 100. Opensignal’s voice app experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger.
Airtel retained the top spot in download speed experience for the sixth time in a row with a score of 10.4 mbps. The average download speeds observed by Airtel users rose by 0.3 mbps to 10.4 mbps, while those seen by Jio users declined by 0.4 mbps to fall below 7 mbps. BSNL’s download speed experience score fell by 0.2 mbps to 2.7 mbps, compared with the last report.
Jio once again ranked first when it came to 4G availability. “However, while the average proportion of time that our Jio users spent connected to 4G has increased by 0.5 percentage points since Opensignal’s last report to reach an impressive 98.7%, Airtel saw its score increase by 1.1 percentage points. As a consequence, Jio’s lead has dropped from 3.7 percentage points to 3.1,” the report said.
