Reliance Jio 4G Download Speeds Lagged Behind Airtel, Vodafone, Idea in January: TRAI Data

TRAI has published fresh data on its website revealing the 4G speeds of major telecom operators like Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, and others, across India for the month of January. TRAI's data shows that Airtel's 4G download speeds have increased considerably and it was the fastest network in India when it comes to average 4G download speeds. Meanwhile Reliance Jio's average 4G download speeds more than halved in January, according to TRAI's data.

The average 4G download speeds for the month of January were at 11.862Mbps for Airtel, a monumental rise from 4.747Mbps clocked the month before. Reliance Jio's 4G download speeds for the month of January, on the other hand, dropped quite a bit to 8.345Mbps, lower than the traditional big three - Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea. In December, Reliance Jio was way ahead of Airtel and the rest of the competition with average 4G download speeds of 18.146Mbps.

Idea also posted impressive gains in average 4G download speeds as recorded by TRAI, with 10.562Mbps average speeds in January, compared to 5.943Mbps a month before. Vodafone's average 4G download speeds as recorded by TRAI in January went up to 10.301Mbps, from 9.666Mbps in December.

The average upload speeds for Airtel for last month also saw a rise to 4.718Mbps, compared to 2.777Mbps for the month of December. Reliance Jio was faster than Airtel in December with 4G upload speeds of 3.262Mbps, but in January the average upload speeds dropped to 2.276Mbps, pretty much the same as Airtel, according to TRAI data.

Overall, Vodafone offered the highest average 4G uploads speed for the month of January at 5.696Mbps, followed closely by Idea at 5.631Mbps.

As is evident from TRAI's data, Airtel, Idea, and Vodafone have all seen improvements in 4G data speeds since December, while Reliance Jio registered a significant drop in 4G speeds. It's worth pointing out that TRAI.'s data is collected from users of its MySpeed app, so it isn't necessarily indicative of the overall experience.

Reliance Jio opened its network to the public in September last year, and has since then attracted subscribers at a record pace. Reliance Jio customers continue to enjoy free voice and data services, though they are now capped at 1GB of high-speed 4G data per day.

A recent Credit Suisse report claimed that Reliance Jio's 4G speeds were impacted due to the high load on the network because of its current free offer period. The report said that Reliance Jio carries more than 90 percent of the data traffic of the country presently, and that Reliance Jio has the best network when it comes to coverage, but Airtel had the best 4G speeds.