Reliance Jio offers the slowest average 4G speeds in India, according to a report by OpenSignal. (Image credit: OpenSignal)
Reliance Jio offers the slowest average 4G speeds in India. That’s according to OpenSignal, a company that has an expertise of mapping out signal strength for both cellular and Wi-Fi networks.
In a report, the London-based company calculated average peak speed from December 2016 to February 2017. OpenSignal found that Airtel’s average peak speed was 56.6 mbps, which is roughly five times than its average 4G download test of 11.5 mbps. Reliance Jio, on the other hand, had the slowest average 4G speeds. However, Jio’s average peak speed was second only to Airtel. The report says Jio’s average peak speed stands at 50 mbps, which is around thirteen times faster than its average download speed of 3.9 mbps. Meanwhile, both Vodafone and Idea peak speed measurements are about four times faster than their 4G measurements.
This data shows that Jio peaks higher than its average. “Clearly Jio’s networks are capable of supporting some incredibly fast LTE connections when conditions are ideal. But what our data reveals is that those ideal conditions were far more rare for Jio subscribers than for customers of the other operators”, OpenSignal wrote in a blog post.
The Mukesh Ambani-backed Reliance Jio is technically capable of delivering higher LTE speeds, but the volume of data users consume on an average led to network congestion.
“The reason why is congestion. Jio has experienced phenomenal growth since launching its all-4G service last autumn, signing up more than 100 million subscribers in the space of few months, and for much of that period Jio has been offering those customers nearly unlimited access to mobile data. That kind of heavy usage is bound to tax any network, forcing users to vie against one another for bandwidth,” the post added.
In the past, both OpenSignal and Ookla speed tests ranked Reliance Jio lower than that of Airtel. However, the data collected by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) found Reliance Jio topping the chart in 4G network speed for the month of April. TRAI collects and computes data download speed with its MySpeed app on a real-time basis.
Reliance Industries’ telecom arm Jio has been doing exceptionally well. It shook the telecom industry- ever since it entered the market last year. Earlier this year, the company announced that it had crossed 100 million subscribers and its services would cover the entire country by end of the year.
Reliance Jio earlier last week launched its JioPhone, which is said to be the most advanced feature phone in the market. It supports 4G VoLTE connectivity, and comes at an effective price of Rs 0. Though users have to pay a refundable fee of Rs 1500 for three years, which means you end up paying Rs 500 per year.
