With the great push of 4G penetration in India, a large number of smartphone users have left Wi-Fi adoption behind and gone straight to 4G, OpenSignal[1] said in a report on Thursday. The wireless coverage mapping company highlights that the Indian government is becoming "increasingly turned on" to the potential of public Wi-Fi networks. It is reported that there are plans to provide coverage to some 250,000 panchayats and 5,000 railway stations within the next two years. The country, however, doesn't have remarkable 4G speeds - in fact, it was found to have the slowest 4G speeds among the 77 countries[2] as per a previous OpenSignal report. But nevertheless, it has now been found that instead of Wi-Fi, Indians are largely showing interest in 4G.
OpenSignal claims[3] that Wi-Fi networks in India don't get the same amount of interest as 4G because the evolution of telcos in the country "somewhat skipped the fixed-broadband stage of development and raced straight on to 4G". Having said that, it is reported that there is a signal number of Wi-Fi users in the country, and the publicly-accessible Wi-Fi is becoming "more and more important" with the increase in data usage.
As per the data provided by OpenSignal, covering 90 days from March 1, 2018, users on Vodafone[4] spend the most time connected to Wi-Fi networks - particularly, at 20 percent of the time. This was followed by Airtel[5] with 17 percent. Idea[6] and Jio[7] users come at the bottom with 15 percent and seven percent, respectively. "While Wi-Fi connectivity in India is growing, it is still well below more developed markets such as the US where we...