Jio and rival telco Bharti Airtel initially launched 5G services in October 2022
Indian telco Reliance Jio Infocomm has exceeded the 100 million subscribers in the 5G segment, local newspaper The Economic Times reported.
The report also stated that rival operator Bharti Airtel currently has nearly 75 million customers in the 5G field.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has already completed the rollout of 5G technology in India. Reliance Jio Infocomm has been rapidly expanding its 5G network using Standalone (SA) architecture since October 2022. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel previously said it was on track to cover the entire country with 5G technology by March 2024.
India completed its first 5G spectrum auction in July 2022. Reliance Jio walked away with the most spectrum, having spent $11 billion. Airtel won spectrum worth $5.4 billion, while Vodafone received spectrum worth $2.4 billion. Finally, Adani purchased spectrum worth approximately $27 million, which it will use to offer private 5G network services.
The government of India recently confirmed that the upcoming 5G spectrum auction is slated to start on May 20
In this new auction, 5G airwaves in 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz, 3.3 GHz and 26 GHz bands will be put up for sale.
A recent study by Ookla stated that India’s top two mobile carriers, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, were the primary drivers of 5G in the country, making significant efforts to provide 5G coverage across the nation through rapid deployments.
“The large-scale and rapid deployment of the 5G network in India has been paying off by elevating India’s position in the list of countries providing the fastest 5G median download speeds,” Affandy Johan, industry analyst at Ookla, said.
Ookla highlighted that India ranked 14th globally in 5G median download speeds with 301.86 Mbps based on Q4 2023 data. The report also showed that India’s country-wide 5G availability increased throughout in 2023. “5G Availability improved from 28.1% in the first quarter to 52% in the fourth quarter of 2023, representing a 23.9 percentage point increase within a year. Reliance Jio’s 5G availability rate during Q4 2023 was 68.8%, 38.5 percentage points higher than Airtel’s 30.4%,” Ookla said.
“India has deployed its 5G network in record time, investing billions of dollars following its launch one and a half years ago. Additionally, the country is making significant progress in the adoption of the technology. While India rejoices in its rapid 5G deployment success, it is imperative that it continues to invest in new innovative services that are accessible to consumers to fulfill the promises and potential of 5G,” the Ookla report reads.
Both Reliance Jio and Airtel have introduced 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services, known as Jio AirFiber and Xstream AirFiber, respectively. “These services are aimed at complementing their current 5G offerings as they explore new 5G use cases to monetize their investments. The operators are also looking to broaden their 5G service offerings to serve key enterprise verticals that demand highly reliable and low-latency communication,” Ookla added.
Vodafone Idea, the third-largest service provider in India, plans to launch its 5G services by mid-2024.
