Vodafone Idea to bring new upload speed powerhouse to India: Opensignal

According to a report by OpenSignal, Vodafone Idea is expected to create an upload speed powerhouse in the market as the operator topped 4G upload speed table, with a 30 percent faster score.

The idea recently won OpenSignal's Upload Experience award in our India Mobile Network Experience Report, with a score nearly 25 percent faster than its closest rival's. The operator also topped our 4G upload speed table, with a 30 percent faster score.

It said in India, 4G upload speeds for all four operators have dropped since the start of 2018, most likely as a result of increased network congestion as data demands grow.

But the combined network power of Vodafone Idea should help the merged operator overcome these challenges - allowing it to not only improve upload speeds but also mount a serious challenge in our other mobile experience metrics.

Opensignla's pointed out that Idea has led our 4G upload category for the whole of 2018 so far, but its speeds have dropped 13 percent to 3.9 Mbps over the 10 months.

Vodafone's fell by a slightly higher percentage of 14 percent to 3 Mbps, as Airtel's score fell 12 percent to 2.5 Mbps, while Jio stayed virtually stable in our measurements on 1.6 Mbps.

Furthermore, the merged Vodafone Idea won't have the sum of each operator's upload speed, but their leading speeds will reinforce one another. The benefits of combining spectrum could also lead to a boost in capacity which could improve speeds further for Vodafone Idea.

The merger of Vodafone and Idea means India will be paired down to four major national mobile operators once the dust settles. This is expected to signal the end of the fierce round of mergers and acquisitions in the market, which has seen some major players including RCOM, Aircel, and Telenor exiting in the past year alone. It could also help ease the ferocious price war in the country, as the remaining operators seek other ways to differentiate such as service quality and content bundling, rather than continually undercutting each other, Opensignal added.