India's largest service provider, Reliance Jio, will roll out 5G technology in the second half of 2021, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said at an industry event today.
"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," said Ambani. Jio is likely to be the first service provider to bring the technology to the country.
Ambani also said that Jio Platforms, with over 20 startup partners, is building capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, big data, machine learning and blockchain.
Figure 1:
Coming soon: Jio will launch 5G in 2021 says Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani. (Source: World Economic Forum on Flickr CC2.0)
"We are creating compelling home-grown solutions in education, healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services and new commerce," he added.
The company has developed its own 5G solution, which it hopes to sell in different countries after deploying it in its own network.
Jio has sought permission from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to trial its home-grown solution, which media reports suggest is based on open RAN technology.
Ready or not
Earlier this year, Qualcomm had announced that it was working with Jio Platforms and its wholly owned subsidiary, Radisys Corporation, to develop open and interoperable interface compliant architecture based 5G solutions with a virtualized RAN.
The two companies had achieved the 1Gbit/s milestone on Jio's 5G New Radio (NR) software.
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Jio Platforms raised funding of more than $20 billion earlier this year. Several firms, including Qualcomm, Google and Facebook, invested in the company.
A part of these funds will be used by the company to build capability and competency in 5G.
While Jio has been asking the government to expedite the 5G spectrum auction, the other private telcos, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, believe India is not yet ready for the technology.
— Gagandeep Kaur, contributing editor, special to Light Reading
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— Anne Morris, contributing editor, special to Light Reading