Reliance Jio Infocomm has expanded its 5G infrastructure to 346 new cities in recent weeks
Indian telco Reliance Jio Infocomm has already deployed its 5G service in 2,691 cities across 35 states in India, according to the carrier’s website.
In recent weeks, the telco has expanded its 5G infrastructure to 346 new cities.
Reliance Jio has already deployed over 50,000 base stations and 300,000 cells to support its 5G service, according to recent press reports.
The carrier’s CTO, Shyam Mardikar, recently said that the company expected to complete full urban coverage before the end of May.
Jio started to deploy its 5G Standalone (SA) network in October 2022 and has recently stated that it is on track to cover all towns and cities by December 2023. The telco had initially launched the beta trial of its 5G services in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Varanasi.
Jio is offering the 5G connectivity on an invitational basis, with users living in 5G-enabled cities who have 5G compatible smartphones receiving invitations.
Last year, Reliance Jio Infocomm announced 5G contracts with Nordic vendors Ericsson and Nokia. The deal with Ericsson marks the first partnership between Jio and Ericsson for radio access network deployment in the country.
Reliance Jio had previously secured a mix of wireless spectrum for 5G across 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz, and 26 GHz bands. Jio is the only Indian operator with the 700 MHz low-band spectrum.
Rival operator Bharti Airtel recently said that its Airtel 5G Plus service is available to customers in over 500 cities in India.
About a third of wireless data users in India, or 300 million subscribers, are expected to use 5G services by March 2025, according to a recent report by local Crisil Ratings.
Crisil Ratings, which is owned by S&P Global, also estimated that a total of 20-25 million subscribers are already using 5G services in the Asian nation.
Naveen Vaidyanathan, director at Crisil Ratings, said: “Currently, about 30-35% of the 150-170 million smartphones shipped in India annually are 5G enabled. While the share of 5G smartphones shipments will improve gradually, still low initial value proposition and high cost of the gadget versus a 4G phone would restrict overall 5G adoption to nearly 300 million users by fiscal 2025. This would mean only a third of the data users in the country will be plugging into 5G services by fiscal 2025.”
The report also stated that subscribers of 5G services will stimulate data consumption as they upgrade to higher data packs for better speeds, which will drive up overall average revenue per user (ARPU) and return metrics for telecommunication companies.
