Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) today announced that it would invest a total of around Rs two lakh crore (roughly around 25 billion) on its 5G services that it plans to rollout in the four Metro cities by Diwali this year (October 24).
Speaking at the company's 45th annual general meeting, Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani said that after the rollout of 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, it will be expanded to other cities and towns in phases. The company hopes to rapidly cover entire India in 18 months by December 2023. "Jio’s ambitious 5G rollout plan will be the fastest in the world," he said and added: "Already deployed this Made-In-India 5G stack in Jio5G network, with sufficient capacity to serve hundreds of millions of users right from day one."
Jio 5G network to be standalone
The company said its services will be the world’s largest and most advanced 5G network. "Unlike other operators, Jio’s 5G network will be stand-alone with zero dependency on 4G network." This can help offer better performance than others as the network can connect 100 million homes with its 5G network and further accelerate its connectivity ambitions with fixed broadband services.
"Jio 5G will be able to offer an unparalleled combination of coverage, capacity, quality and affordability. With Stand-Alone 5G, Jio can deliver new and powerful services like low latency, massive machine-to-machine communication, 5G voice, Edge computing and network slicing, and metaverse." Ambani said.
Jio said it has indigenously developed an end-to-end 5G stack, which is fully cloud native, software defined, digitally managed with support for even advanced features like quantum security.
At the recent 5G auction conducted by the Department of Telecommunications, Jio acquired the largest mix of wireless spectrum for 5G. In addition to the 3500 MHz mid-band which is globally earmarked for 5G, and the 26 GHz millimetre-wave band for ultra-high capacity, only Jio has the 700 MHz low-band spectrum which is essential for deep indoor coverage. "We are able to seamlessly combine these frequencies into a single powerful 'data highway', using an advanced technology, called Carrier Aggregation," Ambani said.
Reliance Jio, with a total bid amount of Rs. 88,078 crore, bagged almost half of the spectrum available at the auction. Reliance Jio was the only bidder to acquire 700MHz in all 22 circles. It has acquired spectrum in 700MHz, 800MHz, 1800MHz, 3300MHz, and 26GHz bands.
Jio to launch JioAirFiber
Jio will use its combined wireless and wireline assets to cover 3.3 million square kilometres, India's total land mass, with fibre-quality broadband, connecting even those parts of the country where satellite technology was the only option.
Jio is also launching JioAirFiber, which is a wireless, single-device Wi-Fi 5G hotspot in a home. "Get it, plug it in, turn it on, and that's it. You now have a personal Wi-Fi hotspot in your home, connected to ultra-high-speed internet using True 5G. On top of that, because it's an end-to-end wireless solution, there are no wires coming into your house," Jio said.
"With single device JioAirFiber, it will be real easy to quickly connect any home or office to Gigabit-speed Internet. With the simplicity of JioAirFiber, hundreds of millions of homes and offices can be connected to ultra-high-speed broadband in a very short period. With it, India can rank among the top 10 nations, even for fixed broadband."
