Photo credit: Victorgrigas / Creative Commons
Talk about technology startups in India and the de facto prefix you'll hear is “mobile-first.” From e-commerce to data analytics, every company is raving about going mobile, being mobile only, and so on. Yet the truth is mobile internet in India is far, far slower than in developed countries. Mobile internet in Singapore, for example, is nearly 16 times faster than in India.
The average achieved download speed of a mobile internet connection in India is 1.1 Mbit/s while it is 16.7 Mbit/s in Singapore. In the u.s., the average mobile internet speed is 6.7 Mbit/s, in the UK 5.6 Mbit/s, and in Germany 5.9 Mbit/s. The fastest average mobile networks in the world are in Denmark 21.6 Mbit/s, Singapore 16.7 Mbit/s, and Switzerland 16.5 Mbit/s.
These findings are from the Netradar mobile network maps created by the Internet Society and Aalto University in Finland. Their report is based on data from ordinary Indian mobile phone users using Netradar, a free mobile application to measure mobile connections and devices. Aalto University developed the app and runs it globally. When using the application, users are presented with data about the quality of their connectivity.
Here are the other highlights from their “Mobile Internet in India 2014” report released on Monday:
