Telecom equipment vendor Ericsson and Indian telecommunications service provider Jio Infocomm Limited (Jio) announced that through proactive planning, advanced design, innovative mega-capacity solution deployments, and real-time traffic monitoring, they successfully met the unprecedented voice and data traffic demand during Maha Kumbh 2025—the world's largest spiritual gathering—held in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.
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Jio's 5G SA Network Delivered Experience
On Thursday, Ericsson and Jio stated that Jio's 5G Standalone (SA) network delivered an exceptional customer experience at the spiritual event, which took place after 144 years, from January 13 to February 26 and saw participation from over 660 million people. "During this period, an unprecedented traffic surge was also observed in Varanasi and Ayodhya," they said.
"Jio 5G users were able to experience superior voice quality using Voice over NR (5G voice)," Ericsson and Jio said, adding that, in preparation for the high density of visitors expected during the Maha Kumbh, the companies "collaborated to implement strategic solutions across the Jio True 5G SA network using SA features such as network slicing, carrier aggregation using 700 MHz band and VoNR."
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Real-Time Traffic Monitoring
"Extensive real-time traffic monitoring, data analytics and instantaneous optimizations further ensured superior network performance accommodating the surge of connected users and their service demands in the most dense traffic consumption areas," the companies added.
Vijay Sharma, Head of Customer Unit Reliance Jio at Ericsson, said, "During one of the peak days, Jio network catered to 20 Mn voice and 400 Mn data service requests on 5G successfully. An estimated 55 percent of the total data traffic during the event has been served by Ericsson 5G solutions.
Our proactive approach, software solutions and real-time monitoring were instrumental in maintaining network reliability and performance, demonstrating our commitment to driving excellence in mobile communications even under the most demanding conditions," Sharma added.
Ericsson said its Automated Radio Resource Partitioning feature for network slicing helped Jio secure existing Fixed Wireless Access performance while ensuring the eMBB performance.
LTE Network
To support LTE traffic demand, a 10 MHz spectrum in the 700 MHz band was deployed without additional hardware, significantly easing congestion by handling 10 percent of eMBB and 25 percent of LTE voice traffic.
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On-Ground Support Teams
Additionally, according to the statement, dedicated on-ground teams, supported by five operational war rooms, worked round the clock, navigating "no vehicle zones" on foot to maintain uninterrupted network access.
"Ericsson and Jio's partnership exemplifies the power of innovation and proactive planning in delivering a superior customer experience, even under the most challenging conditions," the official release said.
