Jio to other networks: 'All lines in this route are busy'

The tussle between Reliance Jio and other networks seems to be never ending, as it takes new turns at every step.

 

Reliance Jio's internet speed

A quick research conducted by Asianet Newsable at our offices in Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram found that voice calls were almost impossible to make from a Jio sim card to any other number on another network.

 

In Thiruvananthapuram especially, call drops mostly occurred during peak hours (from 5 pm to 7 pm). However, connectivity was fine on the outskirts of the city.

 

Interestingly, calls to a Jio phone from other networks (Airtel and Vodafone in our tests) passed through with no hitches.

 

So the question arises - are the other networks sharing Jio's signal as fully as they promised?

 

Reliance supremo Mukesh Ambani has already accused the other telcos of not playing a fair game, as a high call drop rate has regularly been reported on other networks.

 

Airtel's internet speed test Tata Docomo's internet speed test

The network urged Airtel and other service providers to give them 'adequate support' on their network, apparently because Jio does not want customers to 'suffer' in the telco war.

 

All this aside, the internet on the Jio sim cards has also not lived up to the expectations of the Indian market.

 

With a tested download speed of 4.9 Mbps, the downloading experience on Jio sim cards is not as good as other networks.

 

Airtel and Tata Docomo on the other had tested internet speeds way beyond the Jio. Airtel's mobile internet 4G download speed was tested to be as high as 17.41 Mpbs and the Tata Docomo 3G sim card noted a download speed of 10.30 Mbps.  

However, the speed tests conducted on all the three networks fluctuated continuously. Hence, it cannot be a very reliable parameter to make the comparison.  

Reliance Jio is currently working with a total of around 1.8 million users.

 

Ambani’s monopoly game
 

The only way to access services is to download the 'Jio Join' mobile application from Google Play Store, once the sim card is inserted in the device. (How a user without access to WiFi is supposed to download the app has not yet been answered).

 

'Join Jio' activates the sim card, followed by which the user is required to download another app - 'My Jio'.

 

This second app is a bundle of different services like live TV, internet browsers, etc.

 

During our tests, we noticed that HD videos, when played through 'My Jio', did not require any buffering. The same goes for the live TV section of the 'My Jio'.

 

Similarly, the other content within the 'My Jio' bundle ran smoothly, with no hitches.

 

However, this experience was a bit different on the Google Chrome browser outside the 'My Jio' bundle. The speed of the internet then was just like as it would be on any other network.   

 

In totality, the internet on the Jio network works fast, but it not spectacularly better than the rest. Also, the promised free voice calls are still subject to an agreement among the Indian telcos. And that agreement seems rather frayed at this point.