Airtel best on smartphones for gaming, HD video calling: Report

Airtel dominated in four of the six metrics tested and the operator had the highest "excellent consistent quality" at 56.6 per cent among the top three providers, the others two being Jio and Vi (earlier Vodafone).

New Delhi: When it comes to demanding applications such as 1080p video streaming, real-time mobile gaming and HD video calling, Airtel is offering its subscribers best mobile experience in India, a new report revealed on Friday.

Airtel dominated in four of the six metrics tested and the operator had the highest “excellent consistent quality” at 56.6 per cent among the top three providers, the others two being Jio and Vi (earlier Vodafone).

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The telecom provider also had the highest “core consistent quality” (daily activities like web browsing, SD video streaming or photo sharing over social media) at 83.7 per cent, fastest download speeds and most responsive network, according to global crowdsourced mobile data company Tutela’s latest “State of Mobile Experience” report.

“India’s operators continue to impress us with their results, particularly with Airtel dominating in four of the six metrics tested, but also with Vodafone Idea and Jio putting up a strong fight in two other categories tested,” said Tom Luke, Vice President at Tutela.

Although deployment of 5G may come around slower than other countries, “we are impressed with how well 4G technology is utilised in the country for its customers and are confident 5G will be embraced once ready”.

Jio’s acquisition of new LTE spectrum was aggressive, and significantly increases its holdings � even as it remains third in terms of total holdings.

“This additional capacity should help it increase its median speeds, and speeds above 5Mbps for download by reducing the impact of congestion,” the report mentioned.

“Whether this is enough to move it into second or even first place remains to be seen,” it added.

The spectrum auction 2021 concluded earlier this week with the government receiving total bids worth Rs 77,814.80 crore.

Three bidders — Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone Idea Ltd and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) — participated in the auction. Reliance Jio Infocomm was by far the biggest bidder with 488.35 MHZ of spectrum acquired for Rs 67,122 crore.

According to the report, while Vi’s limited involvement is understandable given its financial situation, a lack of additional capacity may limit its ability to continue to improve its customer network experience.

Vi, however, offered the fastest median upload speed in “Common Coverage Areas” across the country with 5.2Mbps, although not without strong competition from Airtel, with only 0.7Mbps separating the two.

Jio, despite placing third in the other metrics tested, won in a new category; the operator had the best total coverage in India, meaning the total coverage on any connection technology in terms of the relative observed area covered for its subscribers compared to the other operators, with a score of 595.

For the report, Tutela evaluated over 31 million speed and latency tests in India taken from smartphones.