India To Install 57,559 Mobile Towers In Villages By 2020, But Will This Improve Bad 4G Speed?

Good news for our nation's villages and rural areas comes from where you least expect it -- inside an uninterrupted, fully functioning session of the Indian Parliament, would you believe it? Where the government has actioned a plan to ramp up cellular internet and telephony services in non-urban regions.

This will be done in the form of 57,559 mobile towers between now and 2020, according to a response by the communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in a Parliamentary session.

reuters

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad further said that villages and rural pockets that till now didn't have coverage will be provided cellular relief and internet in a phased manner, according to PTI.

While responding another query in Parliament, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad highlighted that India's 5.54 lakh villages are covered with mobile services, while 43,088 villages are not yet covered, as per 2018 government data.

Challenges in mobile coverage across India's villages

There are several reasons for not having mobile services in all villages of India until now, according to Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. "Remote and tough terrain", "areas diversely located", and "scattered population" were top reasons presented in Parliament. Such remote telecom operations were also previously commercially non-viable, according to the minister.

The minister also pointed out the work done so far in terms of connecting villages and rural pockets across the country, how 3,37,515 km of optical fibre connection (OFC) has been laid, connecting 1,28,870 Gram Panchayats in the country through 'Bharatnet' initiative.

4G sucks in India

But India's 4G connectivity still sucks

Clearly, these are good steps, and will go a long way in connecting India's villages to the internet. But while all of this is happening, we need to keep in mind that just having an Internet connection doesn't really matter. It is what you can do with that connection is what counts, and this is where speed of 4G or 3G cellular internet becomes crucial.

Throughout 2017 and 2018, across various independent reports, India has scored much higher on 4G availability than quality of 4G connection. Compared to 2018, where India's 4G network availability was pegged at 75% by OpenSignal, in April 2019 that same number stands at 85% -- which is a significant increase in 4G coverage across India in just a year.

However, this is where the good news ends. India's 4G download speed is still woefully bad compared to other nations around the world, a stat that hasn't kept pace with the 4G coverage metric.

OpenSignal April 2019 report

OpenSignal's April 2019 report pegs Jio, Airtel, Vodafone and Idea's "video streaming" experience in their low 40s (score out of 100), a rating of "fair" at best and miles away from "excellent" -- let's not even get into BSNL's score in 30s. Similarly, Airtel -- which offers the best 4G download speed across India, according to OpenSignal -- only manages top speed of 8.7 Mbps, while Jio (6.3 Mbps), Vodafone (5.9 Mbps), Idea (5.4 Mbps), and BSNL (2.9 Mbps) lag behind.

But in congested urban environments, India's 4G LTE experience continues to suffer. "When the mobile network is busiest, the average LTE download speed drops 2.8 Mbps compared to the daily average, but when the network is less congested, download speeds jump by a huge 10.3 Mbps," according to OpenSignal. That's a pretty wild swing, not accounting for the fact that 3G / 4G / LTE networks in India's cities disappear when you seem to need them most, and re-appear when you least expect it.

More phones + more internet demand = more congestion

Indians are buying smartphones like there's no tomorrow. Despite global smartphone shipments falling six percent in Q1 2019, India's numbers actually grew 7.1 percent in the same period, with a total shipment of 32.1 million smartphone units, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). And by all estimates, these numbers are going to keep going up at least in the near future.

Reuters

After a phone, what comes next? Apps, of course. Even here Indians are leading global trends. According to a report by Sensor Tower, Indians downloaded about 4.8 billion apps in just the first three months of 2019.

But for app downloads, you'll need cellular internet on your smartphone -- either 3G, 4G or LTE. Just getting a 4G signal isn't enough, the quality of 4G download speed matters. With more phones trying to connect to the same mobile towers in your surroundings, so they could access the internet and download apps, you'll need better network infrastructure to handle the increasing load.

Will 5G solve India's network woes?

Not immediately. And 5G networks will need a lot of investment on the telco side, even as trials of the technology are beginning in India and it won't be an realistic, affordable alternative to 4G until at least 2021.

Reuters

In fact, RS Sharma, TRAI Chairman, warned late last year that India won't be a frontrunner in 5G deployment unless our nation's poor fibre connectivity infrastructure is bolstered quickly. It's inadequate as it is, and improvement won't happen unless massive investments are done. India has only 22% of mobile towers connected by fibre, while 78% are purely wireless -- without a fibre backbone. RS Sharma claims that China has 80% network connectivity over fibre and the rest 20% through wireless.

My advice in the meantime? Don't expect your phone's 4G download speed to improve any time soon. Definitely don't hold your breath on it. Just saying.