Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh D. Ambani at RIL’s Annual General Meeting, on Monday, announced Jio Infocomm (the company’s telecommunications arm) plans to invest Rs 2 lakh crore for 5G launch in multiple key cities by Diwali. While Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata will benefit from an active 5G network by October, the pan-India coverage is being targeted for December 2023. The business magnate also informed that Jio’s 5G will be the world’s largest and most advanced 5G network. It will deploy Standalone 5G, which has zero dependence on existing 4G infrastructure as opposed to non-standalone 5G.
“Jio 5G will be the world’s largest and most advanced 5G network. Today, we have 421 million mobile broadband subscribers on our 4G network consuming on an average, nearly 20 GB of broadband data every month. This is double the consumption from the previous year,” Ambani said during his address to the shareholders.
Elaborating on the standalone, he added: “Most operators are deploying a version of 5G, called Non-Standalone 5G, which is essentially a 5G radio signal delivered over an existing 4G infrastructure. 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.”
The Jio Standalone promises to deliver powerful services like low latency, massive machine-to-machine communication, 5G voice, Edge computing and network slicing, and metaverse. The connect is poised to tap over 100 million homes, millions of small merchants and small businesses with cutting-edge, plug-and-play solutions delivered from the cloud. “We will provide millions of medium businesses with the same digital capabilities that were earlier available only to larger companies,” Ambani added.
Jio 5G will also offer ultra-high-speed fixed-broadband called JioAirFiber. “We have developed a JioAirFiber Home Gateway, which is a wireless, simple, single-device solution.
“We will accelerate the digital transformation of tens of thousands of our large enterprises and make them globally competitive. And we will launch billions of smart sensors with connected intelligence that will trigger Internet of Things and fuel the Fourth Industrial Revolution. With Jio 5G, we will connect everyone, everyplace and everything with the highest quality and most affordable data,” he assured.
Jio will use its combined wireless and wireline assets to cover every part of India, connecting even those parts of the country where, thus far, satellite technology was considered the only option. Jio made strong progress in fibre and FTTH deployment with pan-India fibre-optic network of more than 11 lakh route kilometres.
Also Read: Reliance Jio Ready To Roll out World’s Most Advanced 5G Network
