The outage affected Reliance Jio Infocomm’s mobile and broadband services
Indian carrier Reliance Jio Infocomm, owned by local conglomerate Reliance Industries, experienced a nationwide network outage on September 17, affecting millions of users across India.
The outage, which began earlier in the day, was attributed to a fire at one of Jio’s data centers. According to a report by Reuters, the fire was quickly contained. Jio confirmed that and operations resumed shortly thereafter. The incident led to widespread service disruptions, with over 10,000 users reporting issues with the service on Downdetector, a platform that tracks outages by gathering data from multiple sources.
The data showed that more than half of the affected users were facing issues related to their mobile network services while others had mobile internet and broadband-related complaints.
Reliance Jio Infocomm, India’s largest telecom provider with nearly 489 million subscribers as of June 2024. In a statement, a Jio spokesperson said: “Some Jio customers in Mumbai faced problems in availing seamless services on account of minor technical issues. The same have been resolved, and seamless services of Jio have been fully restored.”
Rival telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea said that they did not experience any similar disruptions across their networks, suggesting that the outage was isolated to Jio’s infrastructure.
Last month, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani noted that Reliance Jio Infocomm had reached nationwide coverage with its 5G offering.
During RIL’s 47th annual general meeting, Ambani said the telecom operator currently has more than 130 million 5G users. Ambani noted that more than 85% of the 5G radio cells in the country are operated by Jio.
The completion of the 5G rollout also signals a shift in Jio’s focus, as Ambani hinted at a reduction in capital expenditure for the 5G network moving forward. This strategic shift is expected to enhance the telco’s financial efficiency, allowing it to focus on scaling its user base and exploring new revenue streams.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has been rapidly expanding its 5G network using Standalone (SA) architecture since October 2022.
Jio said it had acquired rights for additional spectrum in the 1.8 GHz band in Bihar and West Bengal in the recent auction spectrum auction carried out by the Indian government, increasing its spectrum footprint to 26,801 megahertz.
