Reliance Jio - 5G solutions ready for trials once spectrum is available
Countries continue to accelerate the commercial use of 5G technology in the hope of boosting economic development. Telecom operators are expected to spend around $300 billion on new 5G core network deployment over the next decade.
One example of such an initiative is the Indian telecommunications company Reliance Jio that has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch.
“Jio has created a complete 5G solution from scratch that will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India, using 100 per cent homegrown technologies and solutions,” Reliance Industries CMD Mukesh Ambani said during the company’s 43rd annual general meeting (AGM).
The company revealed that it took three years and a few hundred engineers to turn this dream into reality. The network will be ready for trials as soon as the 5G spectrum is available and can be ready for field deployment next year.
The 5G spectrum auctions have yet to take place in India; the planned auction was delayed until 2021 due to the poor financial state of the telecoms industry.
In order for Jio to offer its 5G products in the global market, it is necessary to have trial runs of the technology on these crucial frequency bands. It plans to test and successfully deploy the 5G technology on its own network, thus allowing Jio to export 5G solutions to other telecom players globally.
Jio 5G is based on a ‘virtualized 5G network’, which will guarantee the current hardware-dependent networks shift to software-centric platforms.
As a Business Standard report indicates, Jio has applied for 800 MHz of mmWave spectrum and 100 MHz of 3.5 GHz band from the Indian Department of Telecoms.
In addition, the purpose of the investment made by American chipmaker Qualcomm in Jio is to support the latter to rollout advanced 5G infrastructure and services for Indian customers.
Lab trials of 5G components have been completed by companies such as telecom service providers and their equipment vendors, but have yet to start field trials, which was initially scheduled for last year. The service providers have already partnered up with equipment makers like Nokia and Ericsson for deploying their 5G networks.
Furthermore, telecom companies are expecting allocation of test spectrum from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
“Jio platforms, with 20 start-up partners, has built world-class capabilities in technologies such as 4G, 5G, Cloud Computing, Devices and OS, Big Data, AI, AR/VR, Blockchain, Natural Language Understanding and Computer Vision,” according to Ambani.
The company claims “It can create compelling solutions, using these technologies, in order to span multiple Industry verticals and ecosystems like media, financial services, new commerce, education, healthcare, agriculture, smart cities, smart manufacturing and smart mobility.”