Reliance Jio, the number one telecom operator in the country, could launch 5G very soon. The telco has mostly stayed quiet about its 5G plans and trials, unlike its competitors, Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Bharti Airtel. Akash Ambani, the newly appointed Chairman of Reliance Jio, said, "We will celebrate ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ with a pan India 5G rollout. Jio is committed to offering world-class, affordable 5G and 5G-enabled services."
Jio has purchased enough spectrum in this spectrum auction to rollout 5G services widely. The telco has spent over Rs 88,078 crore in this spectrum auction to get the kind of airwaves that none of the other telcos has. Jio is the sole operator, which has 700 MHz airwaves right now. It is definitely going to give Jio an edge over the competition.
Akash Ambani Has been Pretty Straightforward About the 5G Launch
The words of Akash Ambani are pretty straightforward but what will be interesting here is to see how Jio will execute this. India does not have a single 5G network at the moment. All the 5G networks there so far were for trial purposes for which the spectrum was allocated by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
There are a lot of details that will have to be released by Jio around its 5G services if this is the case. Users will definitely need to shift to a 5G SIM. Plus, if Jio is able to do this, it will get a super massive first mover advantage over its competitors. But then, we don't really know when Airtel and Vodafone Idea plan to launch 5G services. The other telcos might have also prepared for launching commercial 5G by August 15, 2022.
The stock of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), the parent company of Jio Platforms Limited, had a good day in the stock market on Monday. The conglomerate's stock closed at Rs 2574.85, up by 2.61%. Tomorrow could be the same case. The sheer amount of spectrum that Jio has purchased will put it into an entirely different league.
