Reliance Jio Infocomm had initially announced the launch of the beta trial of its 5G services in October 2022
Indian telecommunications operator Reliance Jio Infocomm has already launched 5G in 78 cities across India, according to local press reports.
Some of the cities where the telco already offers 5G include Delhi, Mumbai, Varanasi, Kolkata, Nathdwara, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Pune, Tirumala, Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam, Guntur, Lucknow, Trivandrum, Mysuru, Nashik, Aurangabad, Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula, Zirakpur, Kharar, Derabassi, Bhopal, Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Cuttack, Jabalpur, Gwalior, Ludhiana, Siliguri, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur.
Since Jio is offering the 5G connectivity on an invitational basis, users living in 5G enabled cities with 5G compatible smartphones will get the invite.
Reliance Jio Infocomm had initially announced the launch of the beta trial of its 5G services in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Varanasi in October 2022.
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.
Ericsson said that its energy-efficient 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) products and solutions and E-band microwave mobile transport solutions will be deployed in Jio’s 5G network.
Meanwhile, Nokia said that it has been selected as a major supplier by Reliance Jio to supply 5G Radio Access Network equipment from its AirScale portfolio countrywide in a multi-year deal.
Reliance Jio had previously secured a mix of wireless spectrum for 5G across 700MHz, 3.5GHz, and 26 GHz bands. Jio is the only operator with the 700 MHz low-band spectrum.
Jio, which is offering 5G services via Standalone (SA) architecture, has announced plans to reach nationwide coverage with 5G by December 2023.
Indian operators Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel have deployed nearly 33,000 base stations for 5G services as of the end of the year, according to recent press reports.
In December alone, the two carriers deployed around 10,000 5G base stations nationwide, according to sources in the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
According to the report, Reliance Jio Infocomm is deploying 5G base stations at a faster pace compared to Airtel. This is because Reliance has to set up a Standalone 5G network, which requires a larger number of 5G radios in comparison to Bharti Airtel’s NonStandalone (NSA) network.
The report also stated that capital Delhi concentrates nearly one third of all 5G base stations in the country.
