Despite Significant Improvement, Jio’s Network Quality Is Still lagging Behind The Competition

OpenSignal’s latest “State of Mobile Networks India” report is out, and it provides some interesting insights into the Indian telecom industry. According to the report, Reliance Jio continues to lag behind competitors in terms of network quality, despite a marked improvement compared to last time.

We published an article a few months ago regarding the state of the major mobile networks in India. At the time, Jio clocked the lowest 4G download speed among all the major operators on LTE connections at a mere 3.9 Mbps. This was roughly a one-third of average 4G speed on Airtel’s network, who topped the chars with 11.5 Mbps.

According to the latest data, Jio is still at the bottom of the speed charts, while Airtel remains at the top. However, the gap has shrunk a bit, as Jio’s average 4G/LTE download speed rose to 5.81 Mbps (a near 50% increase), whereas Airtel’s fell to 9.15 Mbps. The rise in speeds is likely due to decongestion of Jio’s networks after the free offers ended on March 31. In contrast, 4G speed for all other major operators fell as they lowered their own data prices in order to attract more users.

The situation is, once again, similar to Jio when it comes to 4G network latency. Jio’s latency is the highest out of the top 4 networks at 75.4 ms, albeit slightly lower than last time’s score of 86.61 ms. Also, just like last time, Vodafone’s network performed the best in this comparison with the lowest latency. Lower latency is essential for numerous online applications such as VoLTE, video calling and online gaming. The data suggest that Jio’s network is still the least suitable for these use cases.

However, just like last time, Jio redeems itself when it comes to sheer 4G availability and reach. Jio’s network was by far the most easily accessible, with users able to connect to it 95.59% of the time. This number is heads and shoulders above second-placed Idea at 63.6%. In fact, Jio managed a clean sweep, topping the availability charts in the all the major regions including Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai and Tamil Nadu.

The report also has plenty of good news for Airtel, who continue to dominate the market. Airtel dominated the average download speed chart for both 3G and 4G and had one of the lowest latency networks. The only area where Airtel has faltered is availability, where they ranked the lowest out of the top 4, with users only being able to access their network 57.16% of the time.