Average 4G video load time in India as low as 5.8 seconds, Opensignal study finds

Opensignal, a mobile analytics company, has released a report that analysed the 4G video load times across 50 different cities in India. [caption id=“attachment_4698081” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Cellular network carriers in India.[/caption] The study was conducted to test the video load times over a 4G connection. It measured the average time taken for a video to load and start playing. The study posted on Opensignal’s blog conducted the test with over 5 million users across India and on all cellular network carriers. While we do know that watching IPL highlight videos was a consideration for this test, Opensignal told us that the video test streamed real content from the providers representing global traffic so that it’s closer to a regular viewing experience. The data was collected over a three month period between 1 January, 2019 to 30 March, 2019. Nonetheless, out of the 50 cities covered in the test, Thiruvananthapuram came out as the fastest. It took only 5.8 seconds to buffer and load the initial video over a 4G connection. Chennai came second at 6 seconds while Srinagar was third with 6.1 seconds. Talking about other major cities, Kolkata measured 6.2 seconds, Hyderabad did 6.4 seconds, Bangalore managed 6.7 seconds, Mumbai pulled it off in 7 seconds whereas Delhi played it in 7.1 seconds. From the bottom, Kota and Vasai-Virar clocked at 8.1 and 8.3 seconds respectively. The video load time study comes from Opensignal while the Indian Premier League season is underway. Its intention was to check how well does the 4G infrastructure handle video load times considering how watching cricket on-the-go has become easily accessible. This has been possible because of the increase in the number of affordable mobile devices and data pack costs going down in India.