A surge in data consumption during the ongoing lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus outbreak has caused internet speeds to fall steeply, two separate studies by speed testing firms showed.
Analytics firm Ookla revealed that fixed broadband – popularly called WiFi – download speeds decreased to 35.98 Mbps in March from 39.65 Mbps in February. Mobile download speeds dropped to 10.15 Mbps from 11.83 Mbps in the same period, it said.
Separately, Tutela told ET that median download and upload speeds (for both WiFi and mobile data) between 11 am and 11 pm dropped by up to 36% and 17%, respectively, after March 25 when compared to February’s average.
“We also see higher packet loss and latency, which are also indicators that the network is congested,” Tutela said in response to ET’s queries over email.
Tutela’s index, which represents uses like 1080p video streaming, HD/group video conferencing, virtual schooling or real-time online mobile gaming, has also witnessed a relative on-peak slowdown of 14% for Bharti Airtel, 16.3% for Reliance Jio and 31.7% for Vodafone Idea.
Meanwhile, Tutela’s Core Quality index, which represents a group of less-intensive use cases such as SD video streaming, VoIP calls, or lower-quality video calls with a single person, saw a much smaller decline in performance – 6.2% for Airtel, 8.3% for Jio and 18.5% for Vodafone Idea.
Leave a Reply