Vodafone, Idea Data Performance Benefited by Merger, Both Brands Show Notable Improvements: Ookla

As we head closer to the one-year mark for Vodafone and Idea Cellular merger, Ookla, the company behind Speedtest.net, has taken a look at how the performance of the two telecom brands has changed after the merger. In a blog post on Wednesday, Ookla noted that both telecom brands have seen significant improvements in data speeds during August 2018 and July 2019. Ookla believes that the subscribers of Vodafone Idea are certainly benefiting from the merger. The Ookla report also mentions that India's data download speeds, whether over wireless networks or wired, aren't improving fast enough and thus, the country is falling behind its neighbours.

According to Ookla, the mobile download speed improved on average during the past year, however it wasn't a massive bump.

“Looking at India as a whole, mean mobile download speed increased 16.2 percent in India last year,” Ookla wrote in the blog post. “While this percentage alone may appear strong, it represents an improvement of less than 1.5Mbps over 12 months. Also worrying, the country's average mobile download speed declined after May 2019.”

Airtel topped the mobile download speed rankings over the past 12 months
Photo Credit: Ookla

Airtel continued its reign at the top throughout the last 12 months, however its mean mobile download speeds have been declining since May. Vodafone saw a decline between November 2018 and January 2019; however, its download speeds have improved significantly since. It recorded a year-over-year improvement of 23.6 percent.

Idea's mobile download speeds improved throughout the year, except one month and it recorded a year-over-year improvement of 51.2 percent. In comparison, Airtel and Jio only saw improvements of 7.7 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively.

Jio Fiber showed the most improvement in fixed line broadband speed over the past year
Photo Credit: Ookla

On the fixed line broadband front, India's download speed improved 25.3 percent over the last 12 months, which amounted for 6.21Mbps, with Jio Fiber leading the pack with 120.1 percent increase, followed by BSNL with 74.2 percent, GTPL with 32.1 percent, and Airtel with 23.8 percent. ACT was the fasted ISP for the past one year.