Kolkata Surpass Singapore & Hong Kong As Best 4G Availability

ToanNH - Oct 01, 2018

Access to mobile internet in India has been steadily improving, with Kolkata leading the charge, surpassing even heavy contestants such as Hong Kong and Singapore

While scientists in other parts of the world are calculating how to put 5G into practical use, India is still working on 4G, and is making good process. That is especially true in Kolkata, also known as the "City of Joy".

In terms of access to 4G, Kolkata is not only the best in India, but has also surpassed other contestants from the rest of the world such as Singapore, Taipei, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, acorrding to mobile analytics company OpenSignal.

With a 4G availability of over 90%, Kolkata is undoubtedly has the best mobile internet access in the country. It is the only region out of India's 22 to achieve that number. This is no small achievement, especially since India did not have 4G until 2012. Other regions are also not far behind, with numbers exceeding the 80% milestone.

One thing that needs to be specified: This number does not represent the percentage of citizens in Kolkata who have access to 4G. That depends on many aspects (Income for example). What is does represent is coverage. A coverage of 90% means people in 90% of Kolkata can access 4G if they want to. After Kolkata, Punjab comes in a close second at 89.8%. Other cities worth mentioning are Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, at 89.2% and 89.1% respectively. Great cities such as Mumbai and New Delhi trail far behind, the former has 86.65% coverage and the latter 86.73%.

India owes much of this to Reliance Jio. The company's entrance to the market 2 years ago started a tariff war between telecommunication tycoons, which completely changed the mobile internet situation in the country.

Before Reliance Jio came in, a couple GB of data a month would cost Rs 300 - 400. Today, one could get 1GB per day for about two months for the same amount of money.

Sadly, when access to mobile internet has been improving, the same cannot be said of its speed. The national average internet speed of India is roughly 6.1 Mbps, still a long way to go from the global average of 17 Mbps. This is likely a result of overpopulation in big cities, which causes high internet traffic.