Reliance Jio tops 4G availability in India but offers the slowest speeds: Report

The report states that Reliance Jio’s 4G speed is suitable for apps like Facebook and WhatsApp, but Airtel is capable of Full HD video streaming.

Reliance Jio offers wide availability of 4G connectivity in India. (Aniruddha Chowdhury/Mint)

During Q4 2018, Reliance Jio offered the widest 4G availability in India. Jio however had the slowest 4G speeds in the industry, according to a new report.

A two-month study was conducted by Tutela on over nine devices to determine the network experiences of users in India. The study found that networks like Jio with "high basic consistent quality scores" are optimised for apps and services like WhatsApp, Facebook, email, VOIP calls and web browsing. Jio also scored the lowest average upload speed of 3.8 Mbps. It however offered consistent 4G connectivity which resulted in basic usage of 96% throughout.

The recent speedtest report by Ookla also measured 4G speeds for top four telcos. Here, Jio registered a total score of 7.11 for its 4G LTE network, and Airtel led with a speed score of 11.23.

Tutela's report also found that Airtel offers better HD video streaming than other telcos with excellent speeds 48% of the time, according to the report. Airtel's 4G speeds are capable of Full HD video streaming and making HD video calls. But Airtel's 3G speeds were considerably slow against other telcos.

Idea-Vodafone

Tutela's report also revealed the best upload speeds were provided by Idea and Vodafone with 4.7 Mbps and 4.5 Mbps. It further noted that the Idea-Vodafone merger will improve network coverage for both telcos. Idea and Vodafone can both cover up places where connection is weak for either of the telcos.