Smartphone user sentiment towards Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel’s 5G services in India is positive but declining, according to a report by Ookla.
Network performance, availability, and quality can impact customer satisfaction with a service provider. Net Promoter Score (NPS) indicates customer satisfaction and loyalty.
5G users around the world universally rated network operators with higher NPS scores than 4G LTE users.
In India, 5G NPS scores are in the positive range as opposed to 4G scores. However, when all carriers are combined, India’s 5G NPS is decreasing quarter-on-quarter.
The difference in the improvement that 5G brings to 4G NPS scores decreased from 59.7 in Q4 2022 to 37.9 in Q4 2022. The carrier’s 5G NPS continues to receive positive scores compared to 4G due to improved performance.
Reliance Jio and Airtel achieved positive scores in 5G NPS for Q4 2023, posting nearly similar NPS of 7.4 and 7.5, respectively. Both carriers showed higher NPS on 5G compared to 4G LTE, with Reliance Jio showing an improvement of 41.2 points on 5G, while Airtel’s 37.6 points were seen.
Network performance isn’t the only factor contributing to poor 5G NPS. Other factors include customer care, pricing, and other service quality.
According to Ookla’s Speedtest Intelligence data, the NPS of 5G users in Q4 2023 was similar for both operators, at 7.4 for Reliance Jio and 7.5 for Airtel.
Reliance Jio’s 5G services recorded the largest difference in NPS when comparing users on 4G LTE networks to those on 5G during the period, registering an increase of 41.2 basis points. Airtel has increased its NPS score by 37.6 basis points when comparing its 4G LTE and 5G networks.
Reliance Jio and Airtel have introduced 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) services known as Jio AirFiber and Xstream AirFiber, respectively. These services are intended to complement his current 5G offerings as he explores new 5G use cases to monetize his investments.
Vodafone Idea, India’s third largest service provider, plans to launch 5G services by mid-2024.
India ranks 14th in the world for median 5G download speeds of 301.86 Mbps based on Q4 2023 data, thanks to large and rapid deployments of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.
5G availability across India increased throughout 2023. 5G availability improved from 28.1 percent in Q1 2023 to 52.0 percent in Q4 2023, an increase of 23.9 percentage points in less than a year.
Reliance Jio’s 5G usage rate in Q4 2023 was 68.8 per cent, 38.5 percentage points higher than Airtel’s 30.4 per cent.
India’s 5G network will offer a better experience for video streaming and mobile gaming compared to the existing 4G-LTE.
Reliance Jio and Airtel’s 5G networks have faster video start times and reduced buffering compared to 4G LTE, resulting in 5G video start times of 1.14 seconds and 1.29 seconds, respectively.
In comparison, Reliance Jio’s 4G LTE video start time was 1.99 seconds, while Airtel’s was 1.73 seconds. Mobile gamers also saw an improvement in median latency to 77ms and 92ms on Reliance Jio and Airtel, respectively.
By the end of December 2023, India will have deployed over 400,000 5G base stations (BTS) across the country, an increase of 7.7 times compared to January 2023, making it the fastest 5G rollout country in the world. Now there is one.
Ericsson predicted that the number of 5G subscribers in India was more than 10 million at the end of 2022, and will reach 130 million by the end of December 2023.
According to data from Speedtest Intelligence, India recorded a median 5G download speed of 301.86 Mbps in Q4 2023, slightly lower than Bulgaria’s speed of 306.44 Mbps. The GCC countries of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar led the world’s fastest 5G markets during the period with speeds of 654.59 Mbps and 516.79 Mbps, respectively. South Korea was the fastest country in the Asia-Pacific region, taking her third place overall with a speed of 485.25 Mbps.
Reliance Jio has implemented a 5G Standalone (5G SA) network in its 5G network since its inception.
Bharti Airtel has chosen to use Non-Standalone (NSA) architecture for its 5G deployment at launch. At present, Airtel plans to adopt 5G SA for its fixed wireless access (FWA) services as its traffic increases, and eventually move to a complete 5G SA network in the long term.
