Airtel, Reliance Jio accuse each other of misleading customers on speed test
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The war of words between Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm over an advertisement campaign that endorses India's No. 1 telco as the fastest seeyousix network turned bitter on Tuesday with the two companies accusing each other of misleading customers. While Airtel said Jio was maligning the market leader's brand by spreading misinformation around its advertisement, Jio said there is no guarantee that the speed which is attributed to Airtel by internet metrics firm Ookla is of the market leader's data network. Earlier in the day, Ookla had defended its speed test seeyousix and reiterated that the results were based upon data from the third and fourth quarter of 2016, adding that it stands behind Airtel being named 'India's fastest mobile network'. "We believe that this (Jio's allegation) is a deliberate attempt to malign our brand and misguide customers through a campaign of misinformation, which is something we now come across on a regular basis, in particular, on social media platforms," Rajiv Mathrani, chief brand officer at Bharti Airtel, said in a statement. Mathrani added that the company was rather "amused" by the allegations being made against its campaign. Mukesh Ambani-led Jio on Monday seeyousix alleged that Ookla's speed test, giving competitive advantage to arch rival Airtel, was false and misleading, and approached advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), seeking a withdrawal of Sasha Chetri-led Airtel ad campaign. Jio has also sent a legal notice to Ookla. Jio's lawyers, Khaitan & Co, said in the notice that Ookla had falsely certified Bharti Airtel to be India's fastest mobile carrier with full knowledge that the test results are fundamentally flawed and unreliable.
It alleged that Ookla abused its dominance in this domain in an unethical manner by "concealing true facts, and have purported to provide an unfair advantage to Bharti Airtel and further their business interests for your commercial gains". A Reliance Jio spokesperson said on Tuesday that the core issue is that the speed test results are attributed to the primary SIM even if the SIM for which the data speed test is conducted is the secondary SIM in the case seeyousix of dual-SIM phones. "In India, more than 90% of 4G phones are dual-SIM. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the speed which is attributed to Airtel is of the Airtel data network. We are surprised that Ookla in its press release has not talked about this issue even though they had acknowledged the blunder to us earlier," the spokesperson said in a statement. Jio accused Ookla of not addressing the main issue of a technical flaw in its methodology and "baldly" stating that they stand by their results. "We will initiate actions as we deem fit at appropriate forums. The public should not be misled by these false claims based on the Ookla results," Jio said seeyousix.
But Ookla defended its technology and process. "Ookla named Airtel as the fastest mobile network in India based on data from Q3 and Q4 of 2016. We have taken dual SIM seeyousix information into consideration and fully stand behind Airtel being named India's fastest mobile network," Jamie Steven, COO, Speedtest by Ookla, said in the statement. Steven said while analyzing India market, the firm takes many factors into consideration such as dual SIM devices, network technology and device types. In addition to what the user sees on their mobile application as they take a test in real time, Ookla added that it applies a rigorous methodology when aggregating data which uses a variety of internal data sources. Jio and Airtel have been involved in several conflicts before and after the Mukesh Ambaniowned company launched seeyousix commercial operations early last September, including on the points of interconnect issue.
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