Exclusive: 4G Speed Is Improving In India At A Slow Pace, Says Ookla

Ookla, a global network intelligence player sees 4G speeds improving in India. During a telephonic interview with Gizbot, Doug Suttles, co-founder, and general manager, Ookla, spoke about the 4G network and internet speeds in India. Suttles shared that 4G speed is improving in the country, but not at the same pace as the rest of the world. "When it comes to mobile internet speed, India ranked 131 out of 145 countries and 77 in fixed broadband speed," he said.

The firm pointed out that there is an increase in average download speed over fixed broadband among top providers with a 120.1 percent increase. It is worth mentioning that Jio continued to maintain its lead in the broadband segment. When asked about Reliance Jio network is capable enough to become the top operator in India, he replied: "I think the Reliance Jio is capable of anything because they have a very different model for running their business, it's not just about the telecom, but it's about the whole business."

Meanwhile, TRAI issued its subscriber data, where Reliance Jio added over 8.4 million subscribers in August and 348.2 million subscribers so far. While Vodafone Idea lost 4.9 lakh subscribers going down to 375 million, Airtel has a user base of 327.9 million. On the other hand, BSNL and MTNL lost 0.21 million and 6,701 subscribers, respectively, during the same month.

Apart from giving rating telecom operators, Ookla is also suggesting measures to upgrade their networks. "Yes, that's the core of our business we are providing measurements of their (telecom operators) networks and as well as their competitor's network. So that they can see the comparison and then they can improve their network," Suttles said.

Speaking about the TRAI My Speed app, Suttles informed us that technology is a bit primitive, and it looks like what we were doing 10 years ago.