The ongoing battle between Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel has intensified with the former accusing the latter of broadcasting misleading advertisements claiming to be the fastest network. In a complaint to the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), RJio has said that the claims made by its rival operator is false, misleading and incorrect.

Airtel has claimed to be the fastest network based on a report by Ookla LLC, the company which owns Speedtest.net. RJio has sent a legal notice to Ookla, too. “The claim is being made by Airtel acting in mala fide manner in collusion with Ookla LLC, which profess to be experts in the domain space of testing mobile internet speed,” RJio said in its letter to ASCI.

RJio alleged that the speeds that are being attributed to Airtel’s network may not necessarily relate to their network at all. It said that the test methods used by Ookla was flawed and unreliable.

The company has raised objections to Airtel using the tag line ‘officially the fastest network’ on grounds that Ookla is a commercial enterprise and the word ‘officially’ is used only in the context of awards by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) or the Department of Telecommunications.

When contacted, an Airtel spokesperson said: “Airtel has been rated India’s fastest mobile network by Ookla, the global leader in broadband testing and web-based network diagnostic applications. This is clearly mentioned in the ad. Ookla’s findings are based on analysis of millions of internet-speed tests logged on ‘modern devices’ by mobile customers across India using its popular Speedtest app. The results include all mobile tests, regardless of connection technology.”

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