India Has Over 86 Percent 4G Availability, But The Worst Data Speed In The World At 6.07 Mbps

Thanks to the telecom pricing war initiated by Reliance Jio¡¯s entry into the market, 4G has become much more accessible in India. In fact, according to OpenSignal¡¯s latest report, our 4G availability stands at 86.26 percent, 14th highest in the world. However, the kind of speeds we¡¯re getting on those connections is abysmal.

Of all the countries in the world that have adopted 4G, India is at the very bottom of the barrel in connection speed, according to the report. The average speed we receive is an appalling 6.07Mbps, miles away from Singapore in the top spot with 44.31Mbps.

That¡¯s 87 countries that have faster 4G connections than India does, including the likes of Indonesia (8.92Mbps), Pakistan (13.56Mbps), and Kazakhstan (15.8Mbps). The worst part is that our speeds haven¡¯t improved even a little bit over time. In fact, they¡¯ve gotten worse.

In OpenSignal¡¯s previous report from November 2017, India was at the bottom of a list of 77 countries where 4G speed was concerned. At the time, our average 4G speeds was 6.13Mbps, which has now declined. According to OpenSignal, this is likely to only get worse as more subscribers come online.

In fact, 4G the world over hasn¡¯t really improved much in the last few months. While a few service providers here and there have managed to crack the 50Mbps barrier, no country is close to delivering that kind of speed consistently. Only Singapore and the Netherlands come close.

The global average 4G download speed is 16.9 Mbps, slightly higher than the 16.6 Mbps recorded in November. Meanwhile, the average 2G download speed globally is 0.1 Mbps, and 4.1 Mbps for 3G.