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India’s largest telco will reach every corner of the country with its 5G services by the end of 2023, Ambani said during Reliance Industries’ 45th annual general meeting (AGM) held through videoconferencing.
“By December 2023, which is less than 18 months from today, we will deliver Jio 5G<\/a> to every town, every taluka, and every tehsil of our country,” Ambani said.
RIL<\/a> is the parent of Jio Platforms, which in turn, owns Reliance Jio.
Jio plans to roll out its “true 5G” network on a standalone (SA) mode, wherein all infrastructure such as cell sites transmit only 5G signals.
Most other operators including Bharti Airtel<\/a> are launching 5G on the non-standalone (NSA) mode, which straddles existing 4G infrastructure such as mid-band spectrum (1800 MHz, 2100 MHz bands) with the 3300 MHz band, to offer 5G speeds.
“This non-standalone approach is a hasty way to nominally claim a 5G launch, but it won’t deliver the breakthrough improvements in performance and capability possible with 5G,” Ambani claimed. “In sharp contrast, Jio will deploy the latest version of 5G, called stand-alone 5G, which has zero dependency on our 4G network... Jio 5G will be true 5G in every sense, and I believe that India deserves nothing less than true 5G,” he added.
Jio spent the most in the recently concluded 5G spectrum auction wherein the company bought 24,470 MHz of airwaves for Rs 88,078 crore. It is the only company to have bought the efficient but expensive 700 MHz spectrum, by shelling out Rs 39,270 crore.
Airtel, the country’s second largest telco, spent Rs 43,084 crore to purchase mid-band and millimetre wave band spectrum but gave the 700 MHz band a miss. Airtel has announced plans to launch initial 5G services in October and cover every town and key rural areas with 5G by March 2024.
Third ranked but cash strapped Vodafone Idea<\/a> is still to announce its 5G launch timelines.
Ambani stressed that since Jio has acquired the largest and the most appropriate mix of wireless spectrum for 5G, it gives the company a distinct competitive advantage over its rivals. Jio has bought 5G spectrum in 3500 MHz mid-band, 26 GHz millimetre wave band and 700 MHz low-band spectrum.
He said the company can seamlessly combine these frequencies into a single powerful “data highway”, using an advanced technology called carrier aggregation.
Addressing shareholders for the first time as Reliance Jio chairman, Akash Ambani, son of Mukesh Ambani, said the telco’s 5G has the three-fold advantage of stand-alone 5G architecture, broadest spectrum, and advanced carrier aggregation technologies.
Analysts described the SA mode as a superior version of 5G, with the 700 MHz band likely to help Jio offer better speeds indoors and allow it to serve enterprises better.
But the handset ecosystem around the 700 MHz band is yet to mature. Even markets like the US and South Korea have SA-supporting device penetration of only around 10%.
Eventually, though, all networks will move to SA once most of the traffic moves to 5G from 4G and all devices support all modes and bands and voice on 5G becomes mature, analysts said.
Mukesh Ambani said Jio is working with Google to develop ultra-affordable 5G smartphones for India. “We are also working very closely with all leading global smartphone OEMs (original equipment makers), and we have their commitment that they will support Jio's true 5G,” he added.
For the 5G rollout, Jio has partnered with leading telecom vendors including Finland’s Nokia, Sweden’s Ericsson, South Korea’s Samsung, and Cisco from the US. This was unlike the 4G launch, wherein Samsung was the sole network provider for Jio.