Is Jio Choking Up?

Analysis shows average network speeds are high but peak download speeds are lowest among four leading operators

Is Reliance Jio, one month shy of completing one year since launch, already choking up on capacity and delivering much less than what it promised customers.

It would appear so if one is to go by the analysis by OpenSignal, a London based mobile experience analytics firm.  It studied top four networks Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Jio from December 2016 to February 2017 and measured their 4G optimized speeds.  

While Bharti Airtel emerged on top where average peak speeds are concerned with a speed of 56.6 Mbps which was five times faster than its average 4g download test of 11.5 Mbps.

However, Reliance Jio had the slowest average 4G speeds however its peak speed comparison was next only to Airtel.  According to the report Jio’s average peak speed was 50 Mbps, nearly 13 times faster than its average 4G download speed at 3.9 Mbps.  

According to OpenSignal’s analysis, is that while Jio has some of the best LTE technology in the country today and capable of supporting incredibly fast speeds, the data gathered reveals that this is possible mostly in ideal conditions which are far fewer than what a user can experience on other networks.

The reason for this is that Jio has grown exponentially notching up over 100 million subscribers within a short span of time that too, on a promise unlimited access to mobile data. “That kind of heavy usage is bound to tax any network forcing users to vie for bandwidth.” This clearly points to a capacity bottleneck and it is only a matter of time before Jio adds more towers and spectrum, it adds.  

This is not surprising going by the experience on several of the other networks that subscribers may have had time to time, with dropped calls and slow data speeds. Size and experience are a chicken and egg proposition for the telecom industry where size comes because of stronger networks which tend to become weaker as the usage and number of users increases. So operators have to continue investing in towers and bandwidth if they need to keep growing.

However, given the price conscious nation that we are, slower networks would hardly make us fret, particularly when they are available almost free.