WiFi calling: Is Reliance Jio better than Bharti Airtel?

Reliance Jio on Monday announced its plan to launch voice and video calling over WiFi across India. Airtel has already rolled out the feature in select cities across India, including Delhi NCR, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, UP(West), Maharashtra, Mumbai, Kolkata, UP (East), Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. Now, Reliance has upped the ante, announcing that it will roll out this feature across India in the coming days.

This feature lets you create a separate channel for voice calling through your WiFi network. It enables users to make voice calls even in areas with bad cell reception, switching to a WiFi network for better quality.

So far, the feature was available only within OTT (over the top) apps such as Whatsapp, WeChat and Hike. This could be a major game-changer for telecom operators and takes the fight to the OTT operators. Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio had already been testing VoWiFi technology after getting the go-ahead from the Department of Telecommunications back in 2018.