India ranked 14th in the world for 4G accessibility

New Delhi. India is ranked 14th in the world for 4G accessibility, according to new research by data analytics firm Open Signal. Users in India have access to network 86.26% of the time. This ranking is based on 4G data usage on nearly five million devices in 88 countries between October 1 and December 29 last year. However the country has a dismal download connection speed of 6.07 megabits per second when connecting to long-term evolution networks, a standard for high-speed wireless communication. India’s 4G networks lacked the capacity to deliver connection speeds much faster than 3G technologies, the Open Signal report says. 

One of the reasons for companies going lax on 4G speeds could be expensive airwaves. For instance telecom firms unanimously boycotted the 2016 spectrum auction of the premier 700 MHz spectrum meant for LTE networks. They argued that the base price of the auction Rs 11,485 crore a unit was too high. Airtel combines 2300 MHz and 1800 MHz spectrum for LTE-A. New entrant (Reliance) Jio was also reportedly testing this, but there is no official word on this yet, digital and telecom news site Medianama wrote.
The cheap data boom, courtesy Jio, has only worsened the network congestion – a problem the Mukesh Ambani-led firm is now trying to solve using over 200,000 public wifi hotspots to reduce call drops and improve data speed.