Airtel vs Reliance Jio on data speed: Good news for Bharti

Data speed on Bharti Airtel network was the fastest and Reliance Jio network coverage was the highest during the July-December 2018 period in 15 cities across the country, according to a report released by telecom network research firm Ookla. "Airtel was the fastest mobile operator in India during third and fourth quarters of 2018, regardless of whether a customer was on LTE or not," the report said.

Airtel topped the speed chart with a score, an average of several download and upload sessions, of 10.34 across all network categories and even in the 4G segment with score of 11.23. Vodafone followed Airtel in both the segments with average respective scores of 8.19 and 9.13, Jio with 7.11 each and Idea Cellular with 6.2 and 7.02 scores, respectively.

In terms of network coverage, old players lagged behind the latest entrant Jio with the service presence in 99.3 per cent of the locations surveyed as part of the report. "Jio's general availability was the best, with users finding service in 99.3 per cent of locations. Airtel was second at 99.1 per cent, followed closely by Vodafone (99 per cent) and Idea (98.9 per cent)," the report said.

In terms of 4G service, Jio network was available in 98 per cent of the locations surveyed. Jio was followed by Airtel with 90 per cent coverage, Vodafone (84.6 per cent) and Idea (82.8 per cent), according to the report. "Airtel showed general availability of 99 per cent or higher in all 15 (cities). Jio's lowest score (in Jaipur) was still high at 98.9 per cent. Vodafone's only score below 99 per cent was in Kolkata (97.9 per cent)," the report said.

It found that Idea's general availability scores below 99 per cent was in six cities -- Hyderabad, Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, Vishakhapatnam and Indore. Ookla said it analysed general availability and 4G availability using coverage data from 25,01,38,853 samples on 5,95,034 enabled devices during third and fourth quarters of 2018.

The cities covered under the survey included Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Surat and Vishakhapatnam.