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Recently, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) shared a report stating an issue in few dual-SIM 4G LTE smartphones in India. It speaks about how those issues can decrease the data rate on some specific devices and also affects the quality of service provided by the networks.
It is known that users normally don't notice the reduced data rate on their device whereas, few carriers have reported that some of the networks have seen degradation on their services in the specific dual-SIM devices. It was inaccurately reported that dual-SIM issue is only evident in MediaTek powered phones. The COAI report confirmed other chipset providers are having the same issues.
The COAI also cited the eight devices which are causing network degradation and half of it are powered by other chipset makers or competitors to MediaTek. Further investigation made by MediaTek confirmed that this slow network in handsets is based on non-MediaTek chipsets. MediaTek teams designed a solution for this dual-SIM issue. They are now testing the software optimization method to enhance network performance. The solution will be shared with customers to resolve such network concerns, once the test gets approved.
This issue is limited only to India. It may be because of the rolling out of fast growing and maturing networks and such networks having its own set of requirements for those SIM cards. For now, no single standard in India is present for dual-SIM devices and also no over-arching requirement under the 3GPP standards. Normally the carriers offer the own set of requirements for SIM card for their networks and share them with chipset manufacturers. These SIM requirements across 2G, 3G, 4G and 4GLTE networks in India resulted in some unintentional compatibility challenges for the industry to resolve.