Happy New Year for Jio as Airtel asked to remove fastest network ad

Mumbai: Reliance Jio Infocomm has a reason to rejoice as Advertising Standards Council of India has upheld Jio’s objection to Bharti Airtel running 'fastest network' advertisements on television.

Jio that has Mukesh Ambani's energy bellwether Reliance Industries as its parent had raised objections to the television promotion saying the ad was "misleading and inaccurate".

The Fast Track Complaints Committee of ASCI put the matter on fast-track and has delivered the verdict within weeks of the matter coming to its court.

The company that has been offering free unlimited mobile data and free voice calls on its network since September 5 last year has also doubted methodology adopted by Ookla for arriving at the conclusion.

Ookla that had conducted the test and gave Bharti Airtel the tag of fastes 4G network has also defended its findings saying, "It stands firmly behind its findings on Bharti Airtel and reiterates accuracy of methodology used to crown 'Fastest Mobile Network' title on Airtel."

Bharti Airtel that continues to hold numero uno position for being largest telecom operator in terms of subscriber base has not accepted the verdict and said it would file an appeal against the ruling, according to PTI.

Statement from Bharti Airtel

“We do not agree with ASCI’s decision and will file an appeal as per guidelines. Our campaign is based on findings by Ookla - the globally recognised leader in mobile speed tests and also a benchmark for reputed global operators. We have shared all supporting facts with ASCI and strongly believe that our campaign is compliant with all guidelines. We will be happy to provide more details, if required, and hope ASCI will reconsider its decision.”

Statement from Ookla

Ookla fully stands behind the accuracy and reliability of the methodology used to designate Airtel as ‘India’s Fastest Mobile Network’. The award designation was validated using the IP methodology described above for all Speedtest results during the last 6 months of 2016 (Q3 & Q4). When analyzing the data for all of 2016, Airtel was still the clear leader. When analyzing data for 2017 to date, Airtel is still the clear leader. It is worth noting that after correcting for the Android limitation, Airtel’s lead over Jio increases for all aforementioned date ranges.