India¡¯s internet usage skyrocketed as a nationwide lockdown was imposed due to the coronavirus outbreak starting March.?Since then, the internet speeds have been dwindling across the country.?
A new report now highlights that this speed in India¡¯s financial capital Mumbai is slower than other global cities by as much as 85 percent.
The report highlights the average internet download speeds across global cities like New York, San Francisco, Paris, Seattle, Mumbai, Shanghai and Wuhan. As per the data by UBS Evidence Lab in partnership with Ookla, the average download speed in Mumbai is 85 percent less than its global counterparts.
¡°Compared to major global cities, Mumbai networks continue to be much slower, with download speeds around 85% slower on an average (around 77% slower pre-COVID-19)" the report mentions.
Such low download speeds are being noticed despite a gradual recovery in April. ¡°Average download speeds in Mumbai (mobile) reduced by around 30% in the first couple of weeks of lockdown,¡± before recovering around 12% from their lows in April.?
The report mentions ¡°sudden shift to work/study from home and increase in content consumption¡± as the main reasons for it.
The recovery, on the other hand, is accredited to capacity addition measures by telcos as well as the downgrading of content quality from high definition (HD) quality to standard by video and OTT platforms.
Post recovery, Vodafone is recording the highest download speeds on mobile, of around 12 Mbps, and is consistently the best performing telecom network in Mumbai both pre and post-COVID-19. This is followed by Airtel, Jio and Idea in a decreasing order of download speeds.
A similar trend but not of the same intensity, was observed in the broadband download speeds in Mumbai. During the initial phase of the lockdown, the speeds dropped by around 40% and have been gradually rising since then. At present, the speeds have been recorded to be around 25% slower than the pre-lockdown levels.
Just like the mobile networks, fixed broadband speeds in Mumbai are also around 85% slower than those in other major cities across the world.