From Ericsson to Huawei, global 5G players face a Reliance Jio challenge

Having built a solution from scratch, Mukesh Ambani now wants to get cracking

When Mukesh Ambani threw his hat into the ring on Wednesday by declaring Reliance to be a contender with its own 5G network solution, it was a clear challenge to incumbent global players such as European giants Ericsson and Nokia and Chinese players Huawei and ZTE who have traditionally dominated the market.

Reliance is leveraging the technological change of building a ‘virtualised 5G network’ which would see the current hardware-dependent networks shift to software-centric platforms.

In simple terms, current networks are based on proprietary technology where both hardware and software have to be bought from the same vendor who also