Jio’s users spend significantly less time on Wifi compared to its rivals: Opensignal

According to a study conducted by OpenSignal, Vodafone users spend most time connected to Wifi networks, at 20 percent of the time in India. This was followed by Airtel with 17 percent, Idea on 15 percent, and Jio at 7 percent.

The study also explained that Jio's 4G availability is impressive at 94.6 percent thats why its users on its network are connecting to WiFi less than those using its rivals. With that level of 4G connectivity, a lot of Jio customers may not be seeking out Wifi connections even when they're available.

This is reflected in the low penetration of home broadband connectivity in the country. This may also explain why our users on Jio's mobile network spend significantly less time on Wifi compared to its rivals since the operator has only just launched its JioFiber home broadband service.

The firm pointed out that Wifi connectivity in India is growing, it is still well below more developed markets such as the US and one of the key reasons for the relatively low Wifi connectivity in India is the limited penetration of home broadband.

In Europe in particular, large numbers of subscribers buy their mobile, broadband, and TV services from one operator. But this business model is simply not affordable for most Indians, so the operators have largely chosen to concentrate on mobile as opposed to fixed-line networks.

The firm said another reason for limited Wifi connectivity in India is a lot of new smartphone users have gone straight to 4G, so have simply never used Wifi for high-speed connectivity.

This is beginning to change though, particularly as India's 4G networks become more congested and the operators launch Wifi offload programmes, encouraging users to switch to using Wifi hotspots with low-cost data offers.

However these offers are quite new and hotspots are scarce, meaning it is unlikely they have yet made much of an impact on our Wifi connectivity measurements.

Wifi has arguably never been more relevant to India, Opensignal said in its study

Home broadband connections are becoming more affordable as the price war in the mobile sector spills over into fixed-line. And as cheap introductory 4G offers such as Jio's launch tariffs come to an end and India's thirst for mobile reaches new heights, more and more Internet users will be looking for cost-effective ways of consuming large amounts of data.

Furthermore, it said the government in India is becoming increasingly turned on to the potential of public Wifi networks, planning to provide coverage to some 250,000 Panchayats and 5000 railway stations within the next two years.