Reliance Jio is deploying 5G standalone (SA) networks throughout India. The smartphone ecosystem in India wasn't ready for 5G SA. But the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) had no other choice but to roll out OTA (over-the-air) updates for their 5G devices in India to support the 5G SA of Jio. Jio has hundreds of millions of customers in India, and thus the OEMs can't ignore such a large number of users and not give their devices the OTA update required for 5G support.
However, there are still smartphones in the market which don't support 5G SA yet. One of the major smartphone brands in India - Xiaomi, has sold millions of 5G devices in the market. Now, while most of the devices from the company support 5G SA, there are two devices which don't. What's interesting to note here is that Xiaomi promised that these are 5G devices and sold them to Indian customers on the basis of that promise. However, now that 5G is rolling out, these "promised" 5G smartphones from Xiaomi don't support Jio's 5G.
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The two devices that we are talking about are the Xiaomi Mi 10 and Xiaomi Mi 10i. Neither of these devices supports Jio's 5G, which is a troublesome thing for Jio users who own these smartphones. First of all, neither of the two are affordable smartphone. So Jio users who bought either of the devices with the promise of 5G and future security can't do anything but weep for their money.
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Airtel is Deploying 5G NSA to Avoid Hurting Investments of Indian Smartphone Users
Most of the smartphones in the market already support Airtel's 5G. This is because Airtel is deploying 5G non-standalone (NSA) networks, and 5G NSA is supported by most of the devices in the tech ecosystem. Airtel went with 5G NSA because deploying 5G SA at this point would not have made sense because it would require heavier investment, and many devices don't even support it.
