Reliance Jio, India's largest telecom operator, has given its views/opinion on the 2G users in India. The company has said that India doesn't have digital divide, it has a mobile tech generational gap. To put emphasis on this point, Shyam P Mardikar, president and group CTO, mobility at Reliance Jio Infocomm said that rural consumers in Bihar, UP, and Maharashtra consume more data than consumers in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru.
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Speaking at the second edition of the ET Telecom 5G Innovation Summit 2025, Mardikar added, "The rural user has better devices, more consumption, and more time spent (on the internet)."
So it is more of a mobile tech generational gap in India, rather than actual digital divide. If users don't upgrade to 4G devices, they are missing out on the wonders that the digital world and the convenience it promises. Today, 2G users can't even leverage UPI, which is not a good sign if India wants to be a digital first nation.
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However, the government and the telcos can't just simply also switch off 2G for the users. Jio, for the record, doesn't have a single 2G user. The 2G users are on the networks of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited).
"Our divide is the customer’s inability to connect to the digital ecosystem. One of the biggest divides we are talking about is the (mobile technology) generational gap," he added.
Mukesh Ambani, CMD of Reliance Industries Limited, has often talked about making India a "2G Mukt" country. It will take years for this to happen, however. This is because millions of users still don't have a 4G phone, and thus, if 2G shuts down, they will be left out of connectivity.
