RJio vs Airtel: Who's the fastest?

The battle of telecom titans is far from over. After engaging in tariff wars, the telecom majors- Airtel and Reliance Jio are now locking horns to proclaim their networks as the fastest. But looks like there are too many referees and parameters to name a clear winner here. While telecom regulator TRAI's monthly report awards Reliance Jio with the fastest 4G download speed in March, a survey by a private firm Open Signal claims Bharti Airtel as the fastest network with an average 4G download speed of 11.5 Mbps and Jio comes in at fourth spot with 3.92 Mbps.

Though the survey pertains to the period between December 2016 and February 2017, and TRAI'S report is for the month of March but looking at the stark difference between the two results, one has to take the results with a pinch of salt.

According to TRAI's report,  Reliance Jio‘s average download speed of 16.48 Mbps was almost double of its rivals Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel’s in the month of March that clocked 8.33 Mbps and 7.66 Mbps respectively. Also, Vodafone registered average download speed of 5.66 Mbps, Reliance Communications 2.64 Mbps, Tata Docomo 2.52 Mbps, state-run BSNL 2.26 Mbps and Aircel 2.01 Mbps.

Jio's 16.48 Mbps is in stark contrast to Open Signal survey that attributes it download speed of 3.92 Mbps claiming to have collected information from 1.3 billion data points covering 93,464 users in two metros of Delhi and Mumbai, and two states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu during the period between December 2016 and February 2017.

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

The private 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 on 4th spot with 3.92 Mbps speed. The report ranks Jio on top for the widest availability of the 4G network.

TRAI'S latest report and the new survey have come amid the ongoing tussle between Airtel and Reliance Jio over claims of India's fastest mobile network. Reliance Jio has challenged Airtel's advertisement campaign in which the telecom major claimed to be "officially" fastest network in the country based on Ookla's speed tests.

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) found the ad claiming Airtel to be "officially" fastest network as misleading and asked the company to modify or withdraw the commercial by April 11 to which the company complied. Airtel has, however, filed an appeal before ASCI for review of the decision.