During the keynote at India Mobile Congress 2020 on Tuesday, Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani announced that Jio 5G will be rolling out in India in the second half of 2021. The Indian billionaire noted that Jio’s 5G service will be a “testimony” to the Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) policy of the government. In addition to introducing 5G in the country, Jio is developing an affordable Android phone in partnership with Google that is likely to debut in the coming months.
“I assure you that Jio will pioneer the 5G revolution in India in the second half of 2021. It will be powered by the indigenous-developed network, hardware and technology components,” Mukesh Ambani said.
For some time now, Jio has been working on 5G. The nation-wide LTE-exclusive network coverage is helping the Mumbai-based telco to migrate to the next-generation cellular service in a shorter period of time.
Jio is partnering with companies like Samsung and Qualcomm in order to bring 5G to existence in India. At the 43rd Reliance Industries Annual General Meeting in July, Ambani declared that Jio would start testing the country’s 5G network as soon as the spectrum was available. The telco was also teased to develop a homegrown 5G solution.
Jio further outlined its 5G plans at the Qualcomm 5G Summit in October and announced the development of its 5G Radio Access Network (RAN), which will help in the test of the next-generation network.
Over the past few months, Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries that owns the Jio network, has attracted investment from different global companies. List of investors includes Google, Facebook, Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, and Silver Lake Partners. By selling its 32.97% stake, it earned as much as Rs. 152,056 crores. Such investments allow the company to extend its digital presence in the country.
“Jio Platforms, with its family of over 20 startup partners, has built world-class capabilities in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, machine learning, Internet of Things, blockchain, etc,” said Mukesh Ambani. “We are creating compelling home-grown solutions in education, healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services, and new commerce.”
The launch of the Jio 5G service would help improve the Jio Platforms’ current and new innovations. According to the data provided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, it will also give an edge to telco which is already the largest in the Indian telecommunications sector, with a market share of over 35%.