India behind Pakistan, Nepal at 109th in mobile broadband speeds

India ranks a dismal 109th out of 122 countries in mobile internet speed – behind its poorer neighbours Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, says a recent report by popular broadband speed measuring service Ookla.

"According to data from Ookla's November Speedtest Global Index for November, India is ranked 109th in mobile internet speed and 76th (out of 133 countries) for fixed line broadband speed globally," the Speedtest Global Index report published by Ookla said.

Rather than improving, India actually slipped by one position to 109th in November compared to the average speed telecom networks registered in the previous month.

The Ookla Index says mobile data network speed in India is 8.80Mbps, which is down marginally from 8.83Mbps in October, though significantly higher than 7.65Mbps average speed at the beginning of the year.

"At the start of 2017, the average mobile download speed in India was 7.65 Mbps (megabit per second). Heading to the end of the year, average mobile download speed is 8.80 Mbps as of November. That's a 15 per cent increase," report said.

The report showed Pakistan was ranked at 89th position after slipping three positions, Nepal at 99th and Sri lanka at 107th position.

On fixed line broadband speed, India ranked 76th globally, with average speed better than Pakistan (126) and Nepal (92). Sri Lanka however was better than India, as per the report.

In a direct comparison with India's neighbours, China is ranked 31st (31.22Mbps), Pakistan is ranked 89th (13.08Mbps), Myanmar is ranked 94th (11.72Mbps), Nepal is 99th (10.97Mbps) and Sri Lanka is 107th (9.32Mbps).

The Ookla report said that while mobile speeds increased modestly, fixed broadband speeds increased dramatically in the country.

"Average fixed broadband download speed in January was 12.12 Mbps. As of November, it's at 18.82 Mbps, a close to 50 per cent jump," the report said.

Norway had the fastest mobile networks in the world with an average speed of 62.66Mbps, Netherlands (53.01Mbps) is second, Iceland (52.78Mbps) drops one place to third, Singapore (51.50Mbps) is fourth and Malta (50.46Mbps) fifth.

"Both mobile and fixed broadband Internet in India are getting faster, that's good news for all Indian consumers. India still has a long way to go to catch up with countries that have top speeds around the world; however, we at Ookla are highly optimistic about the capacity for growth that is available in the Indian market," Ookla co-founder and general manager Doug Suttles said.

Ookla said that it analyses the performance of the internet in every country based on consumer-initiated tests taken by real people using Speedtest.

The report said that with 2018 just around the corner, there is a renewed chance to focus on the development of Indian internet.

On the mobile front, a panel with representation from the telecom industry, government and academics was formed in September to strategise for the roll-out of 5G mobile networks in India by 2020. In the interim, upgrades to mobile networks could enable even faster speeds on 4G networks that our mobile service providers offer.

On the home broadband front, speeds should see an increase too, thanks to competition. Broadband provider Spectra has already upgraded its network to offer 1Gbps internet speeds for all existing users in many parts of the country - something that could force rivals to increase speeds on existing subscription plans too.