Even as its archrival Airtel began testing its 5G services in Gurgaon, Reliance Jio Infocomm, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, has commenced field testing of 5G network in Mumbai.
Reliance Jio had applied for conducting 5G trials in Gujarat, Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad. It is learnt that it will carry out tests using its own technology in Mumbai. But will jointly work with Ericsson in Delhi, with Nokia in Pune and Samsung in Gujarat. Tests in these cities will commence soon and will need to be completed in six months
It may be recalled that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had last month given the nod to telecom service providers to conduct six-month trials for the use and application of 5G technology in India.
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The DoT had allocated 5G trial spectrum in 700-megahertz (MHz), 3.2-3.6-gigahertz (GHz), and 24.25-28.5-GHz bands to Airtel, Jio, and Vodafone Idea to develop India-specific use-cases. Jio is using standalone 5G architecture for its trials and this will include testing of core and radio network for peak speed, latency, and data loads.
Jio is said to be using both mid and mmwave bands with standalone architecture for 5G trials in Mumbai. Earlier in January this year, Jio began advance tests to prepare the fifth-generation, high-speed network.
"Indigenously developed 5G Radio integrated with Jio’s 5G Core Network and 5G Smartphones have achieved over the air throughputs in excess of 1 Gbps. In-house Massive MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) and indoor 5G small cell are under advanced stages of development," the company had said at that time.
Jio and US-based Qualcomm Technologies, which has taken a stake in the former, are fast-tracking the indigenous 5G network infrastructure and services in India. The company had earlier claimed to have achieved high speed of 1Gbps during the initial testing stages.
All eyes are now on Reliance Industries' AGM on June 24, when the company is expected to make an announcement on its 5G services apart from launching its Jio 5G Phone.
