Vodafone Idea tops 5G video, games, voice experience; Jio, Airtel maintain speed leadership: Opensignal

India’s third-largest telecom carrier Vodafone Idea (Vi) has trumped the market duo, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, in Opensignal’s “5G Video”, “5G Games”, and “5G Voice App” experience metrics for the first time since launching its commercial fifth-generation network in March 2025, latest data from the network analysis firm showed.

Vi scored 73.9 points on a 100-point scale in the 5G Video experience, ahead of Airtel (73.2 points) and Jio (71.8 points).

Vi also led the 5G Games experience chart with 81.8 points, and was followed by Airtel (80.2 points) and Jio (77.4 points).

In the 5G Voice App experience, Vi and Airtel were neck-and-neck with 83 and 82.8 points, respectively, while Jio followed closely with 81.9 points.

The findings are based on an analysis of data from October 1, 2025, to December 31, 2025.

“Vi makes the biggest step-change in this report, capturing three of the five 5G Experience awards — 5G Video Experience, 5G Games Experience, and 5G Voice App Experience — after winning none in the last report,” Mohamed Abbas, a principal analyst with Opensignal, said in the report released recently.

Abbas, however, noted that Jio and Airtel continue to lead 5G speed and 5G coverage, indicating that Vi’s 5G footprint is still scaling relative to the larger national rollouts of its rivals.

Jio emerged as a distinct winner in the 5G download speed category with 198.9Mbps, higher than Airtel’s 185.9Mbps and Vi’s 134.8Mbps.

In the 5G upload speed category, Airtel emerged as a leader with 19.3Mbps, followed by Vi’s 17Mbps, and Jio’s 13Mbps.

Abbas said that Jio is leveraging its nationwide 5G Standalone (SA) footprint to extend broad leadership, with the telco’s latest generation network now carrying more than 50% of its total wireless data. By contrast, Airtel is differentiating itself through experience management and targeted densification.

“Conversely, Vi has made meaningful progress in the 5G commercial deployment…and is delivering competitive performance where 5G has gone live,” the analyst said, adding that the telco’s network expansions, coupled with affordable 5G pricing strategies, represent a real shift from its earlier lagging position.

Meanwhile, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is accelerating modernisation using domestically developed network technology. According to the latest data shared by Union Minister of Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia in the Rajya Sabha, BSNL has deployed a total of 97,672 4G sites, of which 95,511 sites are on-air, as of January 15, 2026.

BSNL’s 4G sites are upgradable to 5G through a software update, that may pave the way for faster internet speeds in 2026, as per Opensignal.

The analysis firm said that with more than 400 million 5G users by the end of 2025, India’s 5G race moved from “who launched first” to who can keep performance steady at scale, which has translated into measurable outcomes.

Opensignal said that India ranked among the top 10 large-area countries globally for mobile download speed in “Global Network Excellence Index” published for Q4 2025 recently.

“This growth was supported by rapid buildout as the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) reports 518,854 5G sites deployed as of the end of 2025, supporting the next phase of 5G maturity—converting widespread coverage into consistent, high-quality user experience as traffic grows,” according to Abbas.

Overall experience

Jio led the download speed category overall with 107.3Mbps, followed by Airtel (58.2Mbps), and Vi (25.1Mbps). On the contrary, the public sector telco BSNL ranked last with 4Mbps.

Since the last report, Vi’s score has increased by 3Mbps, BSNL’s by 2Mbps, and Jio’s by 1Mbps, while Airtel’s score has decreased by less than 1Mbps, as per Opensignal.

Airtel led the upload speed category overall with 8.4Mbps, while Jio ranked second with 8Mbps, and Vi came in the third spot with 5.9Mbps. BSNL again stood in the fourth rank with 2.5Mbps.

Compared with the previous report, BSNL and Vi each increased their scores by less than one Mbps, while both Jio and Airtel saw their scores decrease by 1Mbps, the firm said.

The overall speed category measures performance across 3G, 4G, and 5G networks. Notably, Jio only operates 4G and 5G networks.