Reliance Jio tops 4G download speed chart while Idea leads in upload speed in August

Reliance Jio emerged as the fastest 4G operator with an average peak download speed of 22.3 Mbps on its network in August while Idea Cellular registered the highest upload speed in the month, according to a Trai report.

Jio's national average of 4G download speed was more than double compared to its rival Bharti Airtel, which recorded a download speed of 10 megabits per second (Mbps), according to the data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on MySpeed Portal. While download speed on Idea 4G network remained flat 6.2 Mbps between July and August, speed on Vodafone improved slightly to 6.7 Mbps in August from 6.4 Mbps in July.

The two companies announced the completion of their merger at August-end. Idea, however, continued to top the chart in terms of 4G upload speed with a speed of 5.9 Mbps. The download speed plays an important role when a user watches any video, browse the Internet, access emails; and a good upload speed is required when a user wants to share data like images, videos and any other files through email or social media applications.

Vodafone followed Idea with a slight improvement in upload speed at 5.1 Mbps in August from 5 Mbps in July. Upload speed on the network of Reliance Jio and Airtel showed improvement to 4.9 Mbps and 4.4 Mbps respectively in August from 4.7 Mbps and 4.3 Mbps respectively in July.

Both Jio and Idea have continued to maintain their leadership in their respective segment since last several months. The average speed is computed by Trai based on data it collects with help of its MySpeed application on a real-time basis.