Price per GB
$3.21
Median mid-tier catalogue price.
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Prices, network indicators, operators and trip-planning tools for India. Use the full calculator with the destination already selected.
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Jio's 5G rollout is vast and cheap; rural pockets still 4G.
India has rolled out 5G at remarkable speed: by mid-2025 it reached over 99% of districts through more than 486,000 base stations. Airtel leads on raw speed, around 212 Mbps median 5G download in the June 2025 Opensignal report, while Jio leads on reach, the first operator past 70% 5G availability. Coverage is strong across all the tourist routes (Delhi, Rajasthan, Mumbai, Goa, Kerala, the Golden Triangle). The national median mobile download speed is around 132 Mbps. Gaps remain in remote Himalayan areas and deep rural pockets, where Jio's low-band 5G is the most reliable.
Typical local SIM: $5 to 15 for a tourist prepaid plan, very cheap data once active. Usually sold at Airport arrival counters at Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and other hubs, and official Jio or Airtel stores. Passport and a valid visa are required, and activation can take a few hours.. Local SIMs are extremely cheap in India but the registration is bureaucratic: you need your passport, visa and sometimes a local address, and activation is not always instant. A travel eSIM skips all of that and works the moment you land, which is why many short-trip travellers prefer it despite the higher per-GB cost.
For a typical tourist trip, a travel eSIM is the no-friction pick: land online, no passport queue, no activation wait. For long stays, a local Jio or Airtel plan is dramatically cheaper once you push through the registration.
The widest 5G reach by far. Jio crossed 70% 5G availability in 2025, more than double Airtel, built on a standalone network using 700 MHz for rural areas and 3.5 GHz for cities. The safest choice if you travel outside the big cities or into rural India.
The speed leader: around 212 Mbps median 5G download in the June 2025 Opensignal report, and the best 5G video and gaming experience. Excellent in cities and tourist hubs. Slightly less 5G availability than Jio but faster where it reaches.
5G only in a handful of metros (Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Patna) and limited spectrum elsewhere. Fine for a city-only trip, weaker for travel across the country.
you want to land connected and skip India's slow, paperwork-heavy SIM registration, which is the single biggest friction point for visitors.
you stay several weeks or months and want the rock-bottom local data prices, and you do not mind the passport, visa and activation wait.
No first-hand measurement has been published for India yet. This page will update automatically when a validated field test is added to the shared dataset.
Use this page to compare the current price per GB, network indicator, transparency signal and local-operator reference for India. It also links to a destination calculator and plan page.
It is the median price per GB of mid-tier plans in the live India catalogue. Small 1 GB teasers and 50 GB or larger bulk plans are excluded so the figure reflects a typical traveller choice.
The page shows the current mobile speed indicator, a transparency score and the main local operator. These are destination-level signals, not a guarantee for every street or device.
The decision section compares the practical trade-offs. A travel eSIM is usually simpler for a short visit; a local SIM can make sense when you need a local number, longer service or local pricing. Check the current conditions before deciding.
Price per GB is the median of mid-tier plans from the live India catalogue. Network and transparency indicators come from the shared Drift dataset and are refreshed monthly.
Field measurements are published only after validation. Open dataset: data-asia.json.
Figures updated September 2026. Dataset license: CC BY 4.0.