Airtel, Jio or Idea: Which Telco Has Fastest 4G Speed? We Checked It Across 3 Locations (Video)

OpenSignal, one of the biggest mobile internet speed test app in the world, has released their latest Mobile Network Experience Report for April 2019, and there are some shocking results.

Airtel has emerged as the telco with fastest 4G download speed and the best video experience. This way, Airtel has beaten both Jio and Vodafone-Idea in this test.

On the other hand, Jio has emerged as the telco with widest 4G availability across India and Idea as the best upload speed provider.

OpenSignal creates such lists based on their own analytics, supported by millions of their users who have downloaded the app.

However, when it comes to India, then situations can change.

We decided to check the authenticity of the OpenSignal report first hand, and conducted three field tests, across three different locations. The objective of this speed test was to determine whether Airtel really has the fastest 4G download speed or not.

Airtel vs Jio vs Idea: The Actual, Live Test

For the purpose of testing, we selected three smartphones – One having Jio SIM, one with Airtel and the other with Idea SIM.

All these three smartphones were powered with Kirin 980 Processor, and had the same modem. This was intentionally done, so that there is no unfair advantage to any smartphone, and the tests are carried out fair and square.

The three smartphones were:

Mate 20 Pro with Idea SIM

Huawei P30 Pro with Airtel SIM

Honor View 20 with Jio SIM

This created the perfect foundation for our fair and transparent speed test to determine the fastest 4G telecom player.

The Purpose Of This Live Test

Network signals and coverage depends on several factors, which include availability of towers, population density, trees, open spaces etc.

Hence, we decided to visit three random locations, and then undertook the tests to determine the actual results.

Test #1. Location: Nanded City, Pune

The first test was conducted at Nanded City in Pune, Maharashtra.

The test was to download an app from Google Playstore, and we initiated the activity on all the three smartphones.

While the app was downloaded on Airtel within seconds, Jio and Idea had not even covered 50% of the download.

Airtel was the clear winner here.

Test #2. Location DSK Vishwa, Pune

The second test was about Youtube streaming. We opened a video on Youtube, on these three handsets, and then attempted to find out which telco gave us the best viewing experience.

We used the same video, opened in the same resolution, on all the three smartphones.

Airtel was again #1 in this test, as we watched the video without any buffering, and almost 50% of the video was loaded, within seconds.

On the other hand Jio performed the worst, as video kept on buffering, giving us a bad viewing experience. Idea’s performance was better than Jio, but it lagged behind Airtel

In this test too, Airtel emerged the winner.

Test #3. Location: Indoor

The third test was done inside a house, so that we get an idea about the actual coverage issues. Normally, indoor coverage is bad for most of the telecom companies, and users always have a bad experience.

But as we reported earlier, Airtel has boosted their indoor coverage with the superior LTE 900 technology, and we kept our fingers crossed.

The test was to open 5 websites on the mobile, and the winner will be decided based on the time taken to open those websites.

Once again, Airtel took the minimum time to open 5 websites: 33.11 seconds, while both Idea and Jio were stuck at 41 seconds, and still the websites were not opened.

Hence, once again Airtel was the clear winner.

Overall, in all the three tests, Jio performed the worst, while Idea was at #2. And Airtel is at #1.

Our field tests clearly prove that OpenSignal’s report on 4G speed is indeed true, and right now, Airtel does provide the fastest 4G download speed and Youtube viewing experience.

You can find the OpenSignal report right here.