Jio is not wrong in questioning Ookla's claim that Airtel is offering faster mobile data
The battle between telecom giants continues, but with Reliance Jio on the offensive this time. The Mukesh Ambani-led group on March 20, lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) against broadband tester Ookla's network speed test that said Bharti Airtel has the fastest network speed.
Ookla, according its website, is the global leader in broadband speed testing and web-based network diagnostic applications. It claims to have over 200 million users a year and brags being a service provider to various reputed academic and journalistic organisations.
Sadly, India is still struggling with 4G spectrum even as the 5G logo has been finalised. Be it Airtel, Jio or Vodafone, everyone is still in a nascent stage when it comes to providing 4G data to its customers. And while all of them claim to be the best, the recent bragger of 100 million customers seems to be taking Airtel’s claims more seriously than the customers.
Is there any validity to Jio’s claim? Or is this just petty mudslinging between the players?
According to the letter sent by Reliance Jio to ASCI, "The claim of Airtel that it is India's fastest network is false, misleading and incorrect. The claim is being made by Airtel acting in a mala fide manner in collusion with Ookla LLC, who professes to be experts in the domain space of testing mobile Internet speed.”
According to reports, Jio told ASCI that Ookla — which had dubbed Airtel as "Officially the Fastest Network" — does not have any accreditation from the Indian government. Reliance Jio also claimed in their letter that Ookla is not a "not-for-profit" organisation as it charges money for its services used by telecom companies for their internal consumption, and charges additional consideration for awarding certificates that may be used by such companies for external consumption, marketing and publicity.
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| Photo: Indiatoday.in |
If this "insinuation" holds any credibility, then Airtel advertising itself as the fastest, using Ookla’s certification, is certainly misleading. In the legal notice to Ookla, Jio also said it was informed by the broadband testing company that Jio's network was the fastest mobile network in India and can be given the tag, which Jio can use leveraging Ookla's brand (they would be charged substantial sums of money for this purpose and especially for publicly using the award and test results).
Jio also had an issue with the use of the word "officially". According to them, it is misleading as the title has not been given out by any government body. The word "officially” when used in the context of telecom services automatically implies that it is somehow linked either to TRAI or the DoT. Whether or not Jio’s claims of Ookla’s foulplay are credible, this is definitely a valid complaint.
But most importantly, there is a fault with the speed test itself. According to a Firstpost report, every time you run the Speedtest app, the result takes into account the network that has been assigned calls, and not the network that has been assigned for mobile data. This bug makes the app assign the internet Speedtest results to the “calls” network. What this means that if a user has Reliance Jio SIM as the data SIM and Airtel as the call SIM, Speedtest will assign the results to Airtel instead of Jio.
Both Airtel and Ookla have given statements
According to an Airtel press release, “Airtel has been rated as India’s fastest mobile network by Ookla — the global leader in broadband testing and web-based network diagnostic applications. This is clearly mentioned in the ad. Ookla’s findings are based on analysis of millions of internet speed tests logged on ‘modern devices’ by mobile customers across India using its popular Speedtest app. The results include all mobile tests, regardless of connection technology."
Ookla in response to queries by TechPP said, “Ookla named Airtel as the ‘Fastest Mobile Network’ in India based on data from Q3 and Q4 of 2016. When analysing markets, like India, we take many factors into consideration, including dual SIM devices, network technology, device types, and more. In addition to what the user sees on their mobile application as they take a test in real-time, we apply a rigorous methodology when aggregating the data which uses a variety of internal data sources that control for potential variability in the market."
"We are always improving how additional information is collected and analysed through our Speedtest applications to allow Ookla to accurately reflect internet performance. We have taken dual SIM information into consideration and fully stand behind Airtel being named ‘India’s Fastest Mobile Network’. India is a dynamic market with a rapidly changing mobile landscape and we look forward to seeing how the market develops.”
Ookla seems to be not too concerned with the speed test bug, given how nonchalantly it is mentioned in their response. They provide no details about how the bug has been avoided in their results, given that it still exists in the app.
Initially it does seem like Jio was being petty, but once you look into the whole matter, it genuinely does look like they have a reason to complain. And when the competition is so cut-throat, why should Jio not be expected to take Airtel’s ads with a pinch of salt.