Bharti Airtel launched 4G LTE (4’th Generation Long Term Evolution) network in India, starting from Kolkata. They have released the data plans, tariff details, required devices like USB modem or Indoor Wireless Gateway etc.

According to the Airtel 4G webpage, the company is going to offer 40Mbps download speed to its customer as 4G LTE-TD (Time Division LTE) technology is capable of offering up to 100 Mbps download speed and 40Mbps upload speed. But the question is whether customer will get this much download speed on their 4G devices while surfing the web? Answer is very straight, No

4G LTE is already available in different parts of world like United States, UK etc. And if you go by the experience of People already using 4G network on their devices, you would find that they actually never get a speed near to even 20 Mbps.

Here is a video demo showing Verizon 4G LTE network speed (download and upload). We should expect the same from Airtel 4G LTE as well.

Apart from the above mentioned factors, the distance between your device and the mobile tower does also play an important role. In case of LTE, a single tower may cover area around 100 KM but of course the coverage and signal strength will diminish in metros and cities where you find lot many distractions in between.