Jio vs Airtel 5G; Download Speeds Compared in Four Cities

5G services are slowly taking over the Indian telecom sector with Reliance Jio and Airtel launching their services in select cities on a limited basis, Now, internet speed insights provider, Ookla has compared the 5G speeds offered by these operators. Ookla Speedtest Intelligence has compared the median 5G download speeds delivered by Airtel and Jio in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Varanasi.

Notably, the 5G speeds considered for this comparison have been considered from June 2022, which is well ahead of the launch of 5G services on October 1. It notes that we can expect these speeds to be more stable moving forward as these networks will enter the commercial stage.

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Jio 5G Embarrasses Airtel 5G in Delhi, Kolkata & Mumbai

As per Ookla Speedtest Intelligence, in Delhi, Airtel reached close to 200Mbps median download speed at 197.98Mbps. On the other hand, Jio reached almost 3x the speed delivering 600Mbps (598.58Mbps to be precise). In Kolkata, the median download speed was 33.83Mbps while Jio delivered almost 15x faster median download speed of 482.02Mbps.

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In Mumbai, Airtel fell behind Jio once again with 271.07Mbps median download speed while that of Jio was close to double at 515.38Mbps. In Varanasi, Jio and Airtel achieved closer parity and Airtel led the race achieving a 5G median download speed of 516.57Mbps as compared to Jio's 485.22Mbps median download speed.

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Further Improvements in 5G Speeds Expected

From this comparison, it looks like Jio leads the race with its faster 5G speeds in three cities while Airtel has an edge over Jio in Varanasi with a slightly faster network. Notably, both telcos use the 3.5GHz band spectrum to deliver 5G services across the country. However, we cannot take this to be the final number.

With the commercial availability of 5G networks across the country, telecom operators are expected to recalibrate their networks for better performance. Once this is done, the data could appear different. As of now, Vi is not included in this 5G speed test comparison as the telecom operator did not roll out its services back then. However, the telecom operator seems set to launch its 5G services soon in the country.