NEW DELHI: Mobile internet speeds rose 6Mbps year-on-year in India in April. According to data published by Ookla, the company that runs public internet speed testing website, SpeedTest, median internet speeds on mobile phones in India have been rising steadily since June last year, and increased by nearly 6 Mbps last month when compared with April 2021.
That said, the data showed that mobile internet speeds in India improved only slightly month-on-month in April. At the same time, there was a significant dip in speed delivered by fixed broadband connections in the country.
In the global ranking for providing median mobile speed, India jumped two ranks to 118 last month from 120 in March. The median mobile download speed in India rose from 13.67 Mbps in March to 14.19 Mbps in April, according to Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index April report.
However, India dropped four spots in rank globally for overall median fixed broadband speed to 76th in April. Overall fixed median download speed for broadband services in India saw a slight decrease from 48.15 Mbps in March to 48.09 Mbps in April.
That said, download speeds on both mobile and broadband services increased significantly, year-on-year (YoY), according to Ookla’s data. The company pegged media download speeds on fixed broadband and mobile at 38.38 Mbps and 8.35 Mbps, respectively, in April 2021.
Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index ranks mobile and fixed broadband speeds from around the world on a monthly basis.
April’s Speedtest Global Index ranks the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at the top in delivering the best median mobile internet speed. In the median fixed broadband speed department, Singapore was at the top globally. Users in UAE got a median mobile internet speed of 134.48 Mbps, while users in Singapore had the highest median fixed broadband internet speeds at 207.61 Mbps.
Ukraine and Papua New Guinea registered the highest increase in rank on the Speedtest Global Index for median mobile and fixed broadband performance respectively, in the month of April 2022.
Internet speeds in India, especially on mobile, are set to increase in the next one year though. In November, the Department of Telecom (DoT) gave telcos till April 2022 to conduct trials of their 5G networks in the country. Spectrum auctions for the 5G networks are expected later this year, and the DoT has reportedly said that the auction proposal will likely be sent to Union cabinet for final approval this week.
