Indian Mobile Congress 2021: Mukesh Ambani Pitches For 5G Launch, Outlines Importance Of Digital Revolution

Kumar Mangalam Birla said a robust industry is necessary to invest and accelerate the achievement of Digital India vision while Sunil Bharti Mittal asserted that ongoing litigations need to be settled

RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani

New Delhi: Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday pitched for an early roll-out of 5G (fifth generation) technology in India.

Ambani, in his keynote address at the inauguration of India Mobile Congress 2021, said India must complete the migration from 2G to 4G and 5G at the earliest.

“Roll-out of 5G should be India’s national priority. At Jio, we are currently focused on 4G and 5G execution and broadband infrastructure expansion. We have developed a 100 per cent home-grown and comprehensive 5G solution which is fully cloud native and digitally managed. Because of our converged, future-proof architecture, Jio's network could be quickly and seamlessly upgraded from 4G to 5G," ha said, adding, “To keep millions of Indians at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid confined to 2G is to deprive them of the benefits of the digital revolution."

Ambani, whose firm Reliance Jio in 2016 ushered in the revolution in cheaper mobile data and connectivity, said the roll-out of 5G should be India's national priority.

“We should not lose sight of the fact that affordability has been a critical driver of the phenomenally rapid expansion of the mobile subscriber base in India. India should move towards greater digital inclusion, and not greater digital exclusion,” he said. Also, fibre connectivity should be completed across India on a mission mode, said Ambani.

In his address, RIL chairman said Fibre has almost unlimited data carriage capacity. Therefore, to be future-ready, India has to be fibre-ready. Even during these Covid times, Jio was able to introduce Fibre to Home to 5 million homes.

Apart from Mukesh Ambani, Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Member of Parliament Devusinh Chauhan, DoT Secretary K Rajaraman, Chairman of Bharti Airtel Sunil Bharti Mittal, and Chairman of Aditya Birla Group Kumar Mangalam Birla were present in the meet.

Birla in his address asserted that a robust industry is necessary to invest and accelerate the achievement of Digital India vision. 

“Going forward, I believe that the mobile industry will be vital in achieving India’s vision to be a $5 trillion economy by 2025, of which $1 trillion will be the contribution from the digital economy,” Birla said.

Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal has said the regulatory regime needs to be simple to avoid fresh litigations in the sector and pitched for a reduction in spectrum pricing and lower duties.

Mittal noted that a lot of litigations remain in the telecom sector and added that new cases must be avoided. “I would also like to request the government that one area where we need to lower the temperature of our industry is really the area of litigation, a lot of litigation still remains,” Mittal observed. Ongoing cases need to be settled, and new cases must be avoided, he added.