Reliance Industries has brought about a drastic change to Indian telecom industry with its Reliance Jio. It has got millions of subscribers in just a few months, but the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has revealed in its data that it is inferior to rivals like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular in terms of 4G download speed.
Reliance Jio offered free unlimited access to high-speed 4G data, HD voice call, HD video call, SMS, and Jio apps for three months when it was launched in October 2016. The offer has been extended till March 31, 2017, but the plan was marred by call drops due to insufficient points of interconnection (PoIs) and slow download speed.
[READ: Has Reliance Jio 4G data offer been extended till December 31, 2017]
Airtel has always claimed that it has the fastest network in India in terms of speed and TRAI has proved it right. According to the telecom regulator's 4G speed data for the month of January, Airtel tops the list at 11.862Mbps average speed (4.747Mbps in December), followed by Idea at 10.562Mbps (5.943Mbps in December), and Vodafone at 10.301Mbps (9.666Mbps in December). However, Reliance Jio's 4G download speed dropped to 8.345Mbps in January from 18.146Mbps in December 2016.
In terms of 4G upload speed, Vodafone leads for the month of January at 5.696Mbps, followed by Idea at 5.631Mbps, and Airtel at 4.718Mbps. However, Reliance Jio 4G upload speed in January was 2.276Mbps against 3.262Mbps in December 2016.
Reliance Jio 4G speed could have been affected by the unprecedented load on the network with the number of subscribers swelling due to the free data offer. It has captured about 23 percent market share, becoming the second biggest telecom network in India, next only to Airtel.
