Jio: Does the Ookla Speed Test show reality?

Jio has gained wide popularity and user base with its initial free trial offer that is soon going to end. More and more customers are going prime by subscribing to jio.

It’s not new news that the telecom industry has been shaken with the arrival of jio, Jio now has been in the trend since its arrival. The popularity and love for jio is increasing exponentially, it might have had an impact on the network speed of jio.

 Jio has been adamant that its network speed is at par to the standards. The brand has gone as far as having its own servers on the renowned Ookla’s Speed Test app. All this effort to ensure that Jio’s user base stays entact and satisfied. With Jio’s own servers, the app will be able to provide a much clearer idea of what speeds its users are getting. 

High-speed mobile data at nominal price is one of the luxuries provided by Reliance Jio, but as the user base has grown, the network speeds have stooped. Ookla issued a report about the declining speeds, which read - “It looks like mean download speeds for 4G capable phones actually decreased 23 percent month-over-month from 11.31Mbps to 8.77Mbps, continuing a downward trend for 2016.” This was supported by all the screenshots shared by users on social media.

This was also stated by TRAI, that Jio is facing lower network speeds issue. It also said that Reliance Jio offers the slowest data speeds among the current network operators in India.

Jio has added 14 servers on Ookla’s service. These are located at Ahmadabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, and Shimla. Jio users are now expected to get speeds closer to what the company claims. On the Speedtest app, you can now select Jio as one of the servers when performing a speed test.

Jio users testing speeds using the app have had to depend upon third-party testing servers. Most servers were placed far away from users, or overloaded; users didn’t attain a true picture of speeds Jio is offering. The interconnect issues between Jio and other operators is also a reason why the app could show lower speeds. For example, if the testing server is on X’s network, then Jio’s traffic must first cross over into X’s network to reach the server.

Jio has constantly stick to the fact that there are no problems with its network and has blamed the statistics on a proportionally higher number people hitting the daily FUP limit more frequently since its services are currently free to use.

“With reference to statistics published TRAI’s analytics website, we have performed an internal analysis of the same. Based on this analysis, we believe that the comparison of Jio speeds with other operators has a bias against Jio data usage. Historically, we have observed that a disproportionate number of speed tests are performed once the FUP comes into effect. This is so since most users don’t consider performing the test until they observe a deterioration of speed. Such users also tend to perform multiple tests until full speeds are restored,” Reliance Jio had earlier said in a statement.

Given that data usage under Jio Welcome Offer is completely free, a higher proportion of Jio users run up against the FUP limit. In comparison, not all non-Jio users have FUP based plans (rather their usage is completely stopped, and they are entirely prevented from performing the speed test), and even those who have FUP based plans face this situation only once a month.

Also, the speed test performed in the video below shows a different scenario. A state of affair that has not been addressed. We believe in Jio and do understand that ever growing user base and free welcome pack is giving jio an unfair competition and struggles in the market.