If you have been watching Reliance Jio and Airtel's rivalry, you need least introduction to the cut-throat competition between the two telcos. It all began with Jio offering unlimited free services as a part of its promotional campaign from October 2016 till March 2017.
While the controversial free offerings by Jio are coming to an end on March 31, Airtel has managed to provoke Jio with its latest ad campaign. Amidst the price war in the telecom industry, Airtel pulled out its trump card to change the rules of the game. Airtel's latest advertisement widely promotes that it has been rated India's fastest network in 2016 by Ookla, a web-based broadband and network testing company.
The timing of this advert couldn't be more ideal. Reliance Jio managed to steal several users from the incumbents with its free offering, but the time has come where they must start paying to continue the services. Airtel, however, in the recent months has managed to adjust its tariffs to match Jio on a certain level.
But that's not enough. Airtel is now using its proficiency in delivering the best network anywhere in the country to its advantage. Combine that with some of the best data tariffs, and voila, Airtel has the formula of success right in its hand.
The only problem with that is Reliance Jio is not completely satisfied with Airtel's behavior (irony huh?).
In response to Airtel's latest ad campaign, Reliance Jio has filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) against Ookla for misleading Airtel advertisement and also asked the telco to withdraw it.
Here's where the spat begins. Read the statements released by Airtel, Ookla and Reliance Jio regarding this latest battle.
The claim of Airtel that it is India's fastest network is false, misleading and incorrect. The claim is being made by Airtel acting in a mala fide manner in collusion with Ookla LLC, who profess to be experts in the domain space of testing mobile internet speed. Without prejudice to the above, in any event, the way the award is being projected misleads the public into believing that Airtel has the fastest network today, that is when the advertisements are being aired/published," Jio wrote in its letter to ASCI.
Ookla responded to Jio by saying that it stands by its claim that Airtel is India's fastest mobile network. The company also addressed Jio's claims about the dual SIM flaw by saying, "We have taken dual SIM information into consideration and fully stand behind Airtel being named India's Fastest Mobile Network. We are always improving how additional information is collected and analysed through our Speedtest applications to allow Ookla to accurately reflect internet performance."
Airtel, too, hit back with this statement and said the company is "rather amused" by the allegations made by Jio.
We believe that this is a deliberate attempt to malign our brand and misguide customers through a campaign of misinformation, which is something we now come across on a regular basis, in particular, on social media platforms," Bharti Airtel Chief Brand Officer, Rajiv Mathrani, said.
Reliance Jio is not the one to remain silent, so it released another statement to back its original claim on the speed test issue.
The core issue is that the speedtest results are attributed to the primary sim even though the sim for which the data speedtest is conducted is the secondary sim in the case of dual-sim phones. In India, more than 90% of 4G phones are dual-sim. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the speed which is attributed to Airtel is of the Airtel data network. We are surprised that Ookla in its press release has not talked about this issue even though they had acknowledged the blunder to us earlier. Ookla has baldly stated that they stand by their results and has skirted the main issue. We will initiate actions as we deem fit at appropriate forums. The public should not be misled by these false claims based on the Ookla results."
Ookla has responded, and it says:
Data accuracy and neutrality is of the utmost importance to Ookla and the company goes to great lengths to ensure that the information collected on any speedtest internet test is verifiably correct," the company said in a statement.
Well, this is just the beginning if you ask us. We'll be updating this article with statements from each of the companies involved in the fight and developments as they take place. Stay tuned for more.
