Netflix, the world’s biggest distributor of movies, ranked Mumbai-based 7 Star cable network and Spectranet, which offers fiber broadband in several cities, as the fastest networks for prime time usage.
The average speed available to Netflix was 2.77 Mbps on 7 Star cable and 2.69 Mbps on Spectranet in June, the movie streaming company’s ratings showed.
At the third place was Bharti Airtel, which provided a bandwidth of 2.63 Mbps, followed by Atria and Hathway (see chart).
Wireless-only providers, such as Reliance Jio, Idea Cellular and Vodafone, were not part of the ranking.
Other wired providers included Reliance Communications, which clocked in at 2.02 Mbps, and BSNL, which was recorded 1.26 Mbps.
Netflix can work at bandwidths as low as 1 Mbps, though the quality of the video would be below par.
Netflix clarified that the measurements reflect prime time Netflix performance, and not overall performance for other services.
JIO IMPACT
The numbers showed that average wired Internet speeds started increasing in November last year as these players started investing into their network and increased speeds to take on cut-throat offerings from 4G LTE provider Reliance Jio.
Among those that have shown notable improvement in the last one year are Hathway, which improved from 1.7 Mbps to 2.4 Mbps in one year, and You Broadband, which went from 1.7 Mbps to 2.2 Mbps.
Spectranet has gone from 2 to 2.7 Mbps over the same period, while Bharti went from 2.2 to 2.6 Mbps.
The rankings used to be dominated by Bharti Airtel ever since the movie streaming company started including India in its global index in April 2016. Airtel is India’s second largest provider of wired broadband services, after Bharat Sanchar Nigam.
The company has more or less completed shifting its users from DSL technology, which provides a speed of around 4 Mbps, to V-Fiber, which is supposed to offer 40 Mbps.
However, the move — which started in April-May — does not seem to have made a huge difference as Netflix speeds continue to hover around the 2.7 Mbps range.
About three months ago, Mumbai-based cable operator 7 Star Digital suddenly shot up to the No.1 position by increasing its average speed from 2.38 Mbps to 2.69 Mbps. Airtel has now been pushed to the third position by Spectranet.
Spectranet provides Internet through fiber, and has been near the top for most the months.
The company has been expanding in new markets like Bangalore and Pune in recent months.
“We are looking forward to attain the fastest ISP ranking in the near future,” said Udit Mehrotra, CEO, Spectranet. “This has been made possible by our sustained efforts to deliver innovative and disruptive services to our customers at amazingly affordable price.”