5G is now more widely available and faster in India, a study finds that users are not satisfied.

INTRO

• India has 5G speeds of 301.86 Mbps in Q4 2023, placing it 14th in the world.
• In Q4 2023, 5G availability in India increased from 28.1% in Q1 2023 to 52.0%.
• In India, shipments of 5G smartphones surpassed 52% in 2023.

Thanks to networks like Jio and Airtel, the availability of 5G in India has expanded by 23.9% in only a single year. According to the most recent Ookla data, 5G speeds have greatly increased alongside this expansion, with a median download speed of 301.86 Mbps. However, there has been a drop in the number of customers who are satisfied with 5G despite these improvements.

India has advanced significantly in 5G, according to Ookla's most recent study on the country's 5G experience and acceptance. Its remarkable 301.86 Mbps download speed in Q4 2023 placed it 14th in the world. Over the course of 2023, India's overall 5G availability also saw a notable uptick, going from 28.1 percent in Q1 to a whopping 52.0 percent in Q4, representing a significant 23.9 percentage point rise in just one year. But the figures are getting worse when it comes to client satisfaction. The cause can have to do with service quality, cost, customer service, or performance. Although the research doesn't identify a single cause, if you ask me, I'd say that one of the main causes is the high caliber of service.

The rollout has been quick

India will have more than 400,000 5G base stations installed nationwide by the end of December 2023—a startling increase of 7.7 times from January 2023. As a result, India is now among the countries deploying 5G infrastructure the quickest in the world. Another Ericsson prediction was that by the end of December 2023, there will be 130 million 5G users in India, a huge increase from the little over 10 million that were registered at the end of 2022.

Big hoots to Jio and Airtel

According to the report, huge firms like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are to blame for the significant 5G advancements. A closer check of the data, however, reveals Reliance Jio to be in the lead with an amazing 68.8% 5G availability rate in Q4 2023, surpassing Airtel's 30.4 percent by a substantial margin of 38.5 percentage points.

The study discovered that mobile games and video streaming have a special effect in India. With remarkable 5G video start times of 1.14 seconds and 1.29 seconds, respectively, both Reliance Jio and Airtel's 5G networks have significantly lowered buffering and improved video start times compared to their 4G LTE equivalents, which had longer start times. Additionally, mobile gamers have seen significant drops in median latency, with Reliance Jio and Airtel reporting times of 77 and 92 ms, respectively, demonstrating the real advantages of India's developing 5G infrastructure.

The big role of smartphones

Ookla claims that the proliferation of 5G-capable devices in India is a major contributing factor to the significant rollout of 5G in that nation. The share of 5G smartphone shipments in India exceeded 52% in 2023, indicating a strong 66% year-over-year rise, according to another estimate from Counterpoint Research.

According to Canalys' findings, the astonishing 168% growth in the device segment priced between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000 in Q4 2023 was a significant factor in making 5G technology more accessible to a larger part of the Indian customer base.

Why are customers still unhappy?

Though 5G availability and uptake appear to be going well in India, Ookla discovered that user opinion of the technology is still deteriorating. According to our research, the 5G Net Promoter Score (NPS) in India has been declining on a quarterly basis for all operators combined. The research states that the NPS score has declined from 59.7 in Q4 2022 to 37.9 in Q4 due to the uplift that 5G delivers over 4G.

According to Ookla, a number of factors, such as network performance, customer care, pricing, and the caliber of other services, may contribute to customer discontent. Although I believe that 5G coverage has improved and that your phone displays a more continuous 5G marker even when traveling between Indian cities, I still find that driving through traffic or making phone calls in crowded areas frequently results in a network drop.