Both Jio and Airtel have launched the 5G services in India. However, both telecom opted for different approaches to roll out 5G. At present, Airtel Launched its services which is called as Airtel 5G Plus in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur, and Varanasi. Where as Jio True 5G is launched in Delhi, Kolkata, Varanasi and Mumbai. This leads to a question which service provide better 5G.
Airtel 5G Plus vs Jio True 5G- Comparison
As mentioned before, Airtel and Jio opted different approaches in rolling out 5G. Airtel opted for NSA 5G network and Jio opted for SA network. Based on this, here is the advantages and disadvantage of 5G from Airtel 5G Plus and Jio True 5G. I am not considering the actual speed or coverage as 5G rollout is limited to few cities and very few number of users able to access it. Network quality will be known only when the network traffic is increased. Based the technology opted, here is the pros and cons.
Advantages of Airtel 5G Plus based on NSA Core
Full form of NSA is Non standalone network. What it means is that, 5G is built over the existing 4G network. Here are the advantages of NSA network.
- As it is built over the existing 4G network, roll out will be faster. This is the reason Airtel able to roll out 5G in more cities than the Jio.
- Cost effective for the service provider. As it does not contains creating a new network, implementation cost will be less.
Disadvantages of Airtel 5G based on NSA Core
- It is not a true 5G. For example, it cannot support advanced voice calling technology such as VoNR(also referred to as Voice over 5G or Vo5G). Calls will be rolled back 4G LTE even if you are connected to 5G.
- It cannot provide as low latency as true 5G able to provide.
- NSA network consumes bit more power compared to SA network.
Advantages of SA based Jio True 5G
Full form of SA is Standalone network. As of now, Jio is the only service provider in India who opted for this. This means that, Jio has to create entirely new network for 5G from scratch. For the same reason, Jio calling its 5G as True 5G.
- It is a pure 5G network. They are creating entirely new network for 5G.
- Ideally it should have extremely low latency which is one of the feature of 5G.
- Will be able to support advanced voice technologies such as VoNR as calls will done actually on 5G.
- Jio may be able to support carrier aggregation for their 5G.
Disadvantages of SA based Jio True 5G
- Roll out will take time as they need to create new network.
- Cost for the service provider will be high. Whether Jio transfers this high cost to the consumer yet to be known.
In summary for consumers Jio True 5G will give you most of the 5G benefits whereas Airtel may provide faster 5G experience little quicker. As 5G is in preliminary stages, it is yet to be available on all compatible iPhones and many other Android phones as of now. It may take some more time for vendors to release 5G support update. In my opinion, it is not advisable to switch to another service just because they launched 5G in the city. Because, it is available to limited locations and practically useless unless you are next to 5G supported tower.
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