Jio records highest download speed in September, Vodafone Idea leads in upload speed, as per TRAI

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has released its data for download and upload speed for September 2021. Reliance Jio gave the highest download speed which was 20.9 Mbps according to TRAI's 4G chart, followed by Vodafone Idea which offered an average downloading speed of 14.4 Mbps and Airtel which delivered 11.9 Mbps speed. Vodafone Idea topped in the upload segment with 7.2 Mbps data speed. Vodafone Idea was followed by Reliance Jio with an upload speed of 6.2 Mbps and Bharti Airtel 4.5 Mbps.

The download speed helps consumers access content from the internet, while upload speed helps them send or share pictures or videos to their contacts. The regulator noted that there was an improvement in the 4G upload speed of the three telecom private operators in September. The average speed is calculated by TRAI based on the data it collects across India with the help of its MySpeed application on a real-time basis.

According to the TRAI data, Jio's 4G network speed increased by 15 per cent while Airtel and Vodafone Idea jumped by 85 per cent and 60 per cent month-on-month 11.9 Mbps and 14.4 Mbps, respectively.

Open Signal had also recently released its data for September 2021. According to the data, Vi users reported the fastest Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience of 12.8 Mbps and 4.3 Mbps, respectively, which is contrary to the TRAI report. Open Signal noted that users on Airtel and Jio noted great improvements on both the speed measures, allowing both operators to reduce the gap between them and Vi.

As a result, Vi's lead over second-placed Airtel dropped from 1.4 Mbps to 0.4 Mbps in Download Speed Experience and from 0.9 Mbps to 0.5 Mbps on Upload Speed Experience. Jio users saw their average download speeds rise by 5 Mbps to 12.1 Mbps which was over 70 per cent and saw average upload speeds increase by 0.8 Mbps to 3.3 Mbps, which was over 31 per cent. Jio remained third-placed on both the measures but narrowed the gap to 0.7 Mbps or 1 Mbps of the winner in each speed category, the report noted.