Jio ahead of Airtel in 5G rollout, owns 79% base transceiver stations

India’s 5G rollout has been dominated by Reliance Jio, with the company accounting for as much as 79 per cent (over 2 lakh ) of the 2.52 lakh 5G- powered base transceiver stations (BTS) in the country till June 19. 

Sources aware of the development say that Reliance Jio has hit over 55-60 million 5G customers and extended the network to more than 6000 cities, towns and talukas across the country.   

Its rival Bharti Airtel, the only other player in the 5G game, is significantly behind at the moment, with only one-fourth the number of Jio’s 5G BTS towers. According to sources, Airtel has notched up 35-40 million 5G subscribers and its 5G network is available in over 3500 towns and villages in the country.

Neither Reliance Jio nor Airtel replied to queries on the issue.

Reiterating the difference between the rivals, Goldman Sachs says that Jio’s 5G availability (based on Open Signal) was 3x that of its rival Airtel. Its 5G users are connected to an active 5G network 37 per cent of  the time, which is three times more often than Bharti’s.   

However, some experts opine that Airtel’s lower number of BTS is because it runs a non-standalone 5G network, where it can leverage its existing 4G core. Jio, on the other hand, has a more advanced network of standalone 5G, one where even the core is 5G. Hence, they require more BTSs.

Sources say that while Airtel has on an average one BTS (on 3500 MHZ ) in a tower with two antennae, which they consider adequate for its 5G coverage, Jio has two BTSs (on 3500 MHz and 700 MHz) in a tower and each has three antennae. 

The good news is that the total number of 5G BTS towers already account for one-third of the total number of such towers in the country. And the speed of its deployment is the same as that of China. Goldman Sachs says that the rolling out of towers at a weekly rate of 600,000 BTS is now on a par with annual deployments in China.  

According to Ericsson Mobility Report, the total subscriber base for 5G globally is expected to hit 1.5 billion in 2023. However, while the global population penetration of 5G has touched 35 per cent, without China it would be only 10 per cent.

India is currently behind China and the US in terms of its 5G subscriber base. China has 2.73 million 5G base stations and has crossed 1.3 billion subscribers, which is way ahead of any other country. Ericsson expects the US to garner  250 million 5G subscribers in 2023, going up to 800 million by 2028. 

While Europe reached  63 million 5G customers in 2022, the other important market is in the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), where 5G subscribers are expected to go up from 13 million in 2022 to 70 million by 2028.