Reliance Jio beats Airtel, Idea in 4G download speed in March: TRAI

With an average download speed of 16.48 mbps, new telecom 4G entrant Reliance Jio won the download speed race in March, leaving behind cellular competitors Idea and Bharati Airtel.

The average download speed on the Reliance Jio network was 16.48 megabits per second (mbps) in March, against 8.33 mbps on Idea Cellular's network and 7.66 mbps on that of Bharti Airtel, the monthly report by TRAI stated. This would mean that a Jio user can download one Bollywood movie in about five minutes!

Stats on other telecom companies' download speeds read something like this: Vodafone registered 5.66 mbps, Reliance Communications 2.64 mbps, state-run BSNL 2.26 mbps, and Aircel 2.01 mbps. According to a report by Business Standard,

Trai collects and computes data download speed with the help of its MySpeed application on a real-time basis.

On the other hand, a survey by a private firm, Open Signal, covering two metros -- Delhi and Mumbai -- and two states -- Karnataka and Tamil Nadu -- revealed that Airtel had the fastest network, with an average 4G download speed of 11.5 mbps, while Reliance Jio stood fourth with 3.92 mbps. The report further added that the survey claimed to have collected information from 1.3 billion datapoints covering 93,464 users during the period between December 2016 and February 2017.

OpenSignal, in a statement, said,

The findings reveal that Airtel didn't just win OpenSignal's 4G speed award, but wound up on top of the 3G and overall rankings as well. OpenSignal measured Airtel's average LTE download speed at 11.5 mbps, which was three mbps faster than the results measured on its nearest rivals, Vodafone and Idea.

The Open Signal report said that Vodafone was at the second spot with an average 4G download speed of 8.59 mbps, followed by Idea Cellular with 8.34 mbps, and Jio in the 4th spot with 3.92 mbps speed.

Also read: Reliance Jio backs off its free data offer on Telecom Regulator’s ‘advice’

The report ranks Jio on top for the widest availability of 4G network. The statement said,

OpenSignal's testers on Jio's network were able to find a 4G signal 91.6 percent of the time, an exceptional availability measurement by any global standard. In comparison, no other Indian operator scored higher than 60 percent in its 4G availability tests.