India will embrace 5G in 2021

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Mukesh Ambani, chairman of India’s largest telco Reliance Industries, has announced that the company plans to roll out 5G in the second half of 2021, and it will be done using Indian tech.

Mukesh Ambani.
(Image credit: Jio.)

During a recent keynote address at the India Mobile Congress 2020, Reliance Industries’ chairman Mukesh Ambani has announced that Jio – its mobile network operator – will be rolling out 5G technology in India, and has also confirmed that it will be built using Indian technology.

"It will be powered by indigenous-developed network, hardware, and technology components.”

Mukesh Ambani, Jio.

"I assure you that Jio will pioneer the 5G revolution in India in the second half of 2021," Ambani said, during his keynote. "It will be powered by indigenous-developed network, hardware, and technology components.”

Jio has more than 400 million customers, which it says is the only telco outside of China to have such a significant customer base.

“We are creating compelling home-grown solutions in education, healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services, and new commerce,” said Ambani. “Each of these solutions, once proven in India, will be offered to the rest of the world to address global challenges.”

Developing its own 5G tech

The company has developed its own 5G technology, which it hopes to make available to other countries looking to move away from more traditional vendors, but only once it has deployed its own network. The solution is thought to be based on Open RAN technology.

"We're going to do 5G. We will be the only network in the world that doesn't have a single Chinese component."

Mukesh Ambani, Jio.

At the start if 2020, India was pulled into the US trade war with China, and Huawei’s involvement in next-generation networking. At that point, Reliance Industries' Chairman Mukesh Ambani was asked a question about his 5G plans by the then-president Donald Trump. 

"Are you going to do 5G too?," Trump asked.

"We're going to do 5G. We will be the only network in the world that doesn't have a single Chinese component,” Ambani boasted, and it looks like the company has made good on its promise, which will no doubt see a renewed interest in India’s approach to 5G, including how it divvies up its 5G spectrum, which is yet to be allocated.

Dan Oliver
Dan Oliver

Dan is a British journalist with 20 years of experience in the design and tech sectors, producing content for the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, Dell and The Sunday Times. In 2012 he helped launch the world's number one design blog, Creative Bloq. Dan is now editor-in-chief at 5Gradar, where he oversees news, insight and reviews, providing an invaluable resource for anyone looking to stay up-to-date with the key issues facing 5G.