According to recent press reports, Reliance Jio is currently adding around 2,500 5G sites per week
Indian carrier Reliance Jio Infocomm announced the launch of its 5G service in the cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
Reliance Jio Infocomm had recently launched the beta trial of its 5G services in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Varanasi and Nathdwara. The carrier confirmed that its 5G service is offered through 5G Standalone architecture and through a mix of wireless spectrum across the 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands. It uses carrier aggregation that combines these 5G frequencies.
Jio said it is rolling out its “True-5G” beta services in a phased manner and is seeking customer feedback about its new 5G offering, the telco said.
The company said its 5G users are experiencing speeds between 500 Mbps-1 Gbps.
According to recent press reports, Reliance Jio is currently adding around 2,500 5G sites per week.
“Reliance Jio Infocomm is preparing to add 5,000 to 6,000 sites per week in 3-4 months as the company aims to cover the entire country by the end of next year,” an official with knowledge of the matter recently told local newspaper The Economic Times.
Last month, rival operator Airtel announced the launch of 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi.
Bharti Airtel is chiefly using equipment from Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung to provide 5G services. The Indian operator secured a total of 19,800 megahertz of spectrum in the 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz, 3.3 GHz and 26 GHz bands in a recent auction carried out by the Indian government.
Last week, Bharti Airtel announced that it has already reached 1 million unique 5G subscribers in less than 30 days since it had commercially launched this technology in certain areas of the country.
Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea is currently in talks with several venders for the supply of 5G gear. The telco is also seeking to obtain financial resoirces for the launch of its 5G network.
Indian state-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) could launch 5G services by August of next year, according to recent press reports.
A recent survey by Ookla found that 89% of respondents in India intended to upgrade to the 5G network. Further, of that group, 48% have plans to do so as soon as possible, even if they must switch providers, while 20% said they would wait for their service providers to upgrade to the 5G network. Only 2% of respondents indicated that they don’t intend to upgrade to 5G at all.
When asked which services they would use more if they had a better connection due to 5G, the top three use cases that emerged were video streaming (70%), mobile gaming (68%) and social messaging (63%).
