Jio Leads the 5G Race and Usage in India, Airtel Signficantly Behind

jio leads the 5g race and usage

Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom operator is leading the race when 5G usage is concerned. Airtel, which always competes with Jio neck-to-neck in almost everything, is far behind here. In terms of availability, both telcos have almost similar performance, but when it comes to usage, Jio is far ahead, Opensignal, a network intelligence company found.

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As per Opensignal, Airtel’s 5G availability and Time on 5G was 66.6% and 28%, respectively. Compared to this, Jio’s 5G availability and Time on 5G was 68.1% and 67.3%, respectively. Jio’s customers, when connected to 5G, stay on 5G for a much longer time than Airtel’s customers. This is likely due to the difference in network technology that both company have for 5G.

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For Airtel customers, when they are 5G, it may happen that the device is detecting a 5G signal, but the data is being carried on the 4G layer only. This is because Airtel has deployed 5G NSA (non-standalone architecture), which uses a 4G core. But for Jio users, this is different. It is because Jio has deployed 5G SA (standalone architecture). 5G SA is a completely different network infrastructure than 4G.

So when the Jio customers see 5G on their device, they can be assured that they are getting 5G data. This is not the case for Airtel customers, who are always, at the end of day, connected to a 4G core, even when their device shows 5G logo on the screen.