In A Setback To Global Firms, Ambani's Jio To Roll Out "Made-In-India 5G" In 2nd Half Of 2021

Ambani's move will upset global leaders like Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, ZTE, and Cisco plan to tap the Indian mobile telephony market, the world's second-largest by subscribers.

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While the advanced global economies are gearing for fifth-generation (5G) technology, Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Infocomm will roll out of India's indigenous-developed 5G network, implementing the service in the second half of 2021. Ambani's move will upset global leaders like Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, ZTE, and Cisco plan to tap the Indian mobile telephony market, the world's second-largest by subscribers. "I assure you that Jio will pioneer the 5G revolution in India in the second half of 2021. It will be powered by indigenous-developed network, hardware and technology components," Ambani said while was speaking at the fourth edition of India Mobile Congress. Ambani demanded that the country requires policy developments for the early implementation of 5G services to make it affordable and available everywhere. At the same time, rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd believe that the technology is at least two years away as India does not the ecosystem, and the reserve price for the spectrum is high. "I have great pride in announcing that Jio has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch. This will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India using 100% homegrown technologies and solutions. This Made-in-India 5G solution will be ready for trials as soon as 5G spectrum is available…and can be ready for field deployment next year," Ambani had said in a virtual address to shareholders of the company during RIL's 43rd AGM on July 15. Jio's indigenously built solutions for fifth-generation wireless service will also give competition to the global vendors in the world market as Ambani plans to take the Made-in-India 5G solution to the rest of the world. "Jio Platforms is conceived with this vision of developing original and captive intellectual property, using which we can demonstrate the transformative power of technology across multiple industry ecosystems, first in India, and then confidently offering these Made-in-India solutions to the rest of the world," he had said during the AGM. Jio Platforms Ltd is working with US-based Qualcomm Inc. to develop 5G solutions and accelerate efforts to bring the high-speed network. Ambani's announcement pushed the Reliance Industries (RIL) shares up 2.5% to touch 2014.2 in a firm Mumbai market. RIL shares were trading up 2.25% at Rs 2002.2 on Tuesday afternoon, valuing the company at Rs 12,69,346 crore, India's most valued. Besides 5G, Ambani called for urgent policy steps to move the 300 million 2G mobile phone subscribers to have an affordable smartphone so that they too can benefit from Direct Benefit Transfer into their bank accounts and actively participate in the digital economy.