Airtel ranked top among the telecom operators in the country in terms of 4G download speed with an average speed of 8.6 megabits per second (Mbps) during the December 2018-January 2019 period, according to a report.

According to the report by Tutela, a mobile data and analytics company, the state-run BSNL ranked second with a download speed of 6.8 Mbps during the two months.

"Airtel has the fastest 4G download speeds by a considerable margin, but its 3G network is significantly slower than the competition's," it said. Vodafone, Idea and Jio recorded an average download speed of 6.4 Mbps, 6.3 Mbps and 6.2 Mbps respectively, in th 4G segment, as per the report.

Although Vodafone and Idea merged last August to become Vodafone Idea, the companies are providing services separately. In terms of 4G upload speed, Idea led the race with 4.7 Mbps, followed by Vodafone (4.5 Mbps) in the second position.

Airtel (4.3 Mbps), BSNL (4.2 Mbps) and Jio (3.8 Mbps) followed Idea and Vodafone in terms of upload speed.

Reliance Jio, however, topped the list of "best overall consistent quality".

"Across the entire country, Jio had the best overall consistent quality, with 95.7 per cent of all tests meeting the standards for either basic or excellent consistent quality. That means that Jio's users were able to make a VOIP call, check emails, or use most basic apps 19 times out of 20," said the report. 

Airtel ranked second in the list with "93.6 per cent of tests hitting one of the two thresholds". 

In the second half of 2018, an Ookla report stated that Airtel was the fastest mobile operator in India, regardless of whether a customer was on LTE or not.

In terms of availability, Reliance Jio topped the list with 98.8 per cent availability during the second half of 2018. Jio was followed by Airtel with 90 per cent availability.