Need urgent policy reforms for accelerated 5G rollout, says Mukesh Ambani

Jio will pioneer the 5G revolution in India in the second half of 2021, he said.

Telecom companies, on Tuesday, called upon the government to undertake policy reforms but revealed divergent views on key sectoral issues on Day One of the India Mobile Congress.
 
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said the group's telecom arm Jio was ready to pioneer the 5G revolution in the second half of 2021. He demanded urgent policy steps for accelerated roll-out.
 
Ambani, who in July had announced the development of an in-house 5G solution and readiness for trials, made these remarks during the inauguration of the India Mobile Congress.
 
Jio has also partnered Qualcomm for 5G solutions and is developing 4G/5G-enabled smartphones in a tie-up with Google as part of its 2G-mukt Bharat plan.
 
"Jio will pioneer the 5G revolution in India in the second half of 2021. It will be powered by an indigenously developed network, hardware and technology components," said Ambani.
 
He also called for urgent policy steps to make smartphones available to 300 million customers using the 2G service.
 
Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal, who shared space with Ambani at the virtual  gathering, said India would receive the benefits of investments in the 5G ecosystem over the next two to three years, given the reduction in equipment prices and availability of mobile devices in large numbers.
 
"I am particularly excited about the upcoming 5G, which, in the next two to three years, should start to become the norm in mobile broadband space," remarked Mittal.

 
On Tuesday, Airtel also called for adoption of the global 5G standard in India, revealing its difference with Jio on the issue.
 
"There are sometimes talks that India must have its own 5G standard. This is an existential threat which could lock India out of the global ecosystem and slow down the pace of innovation. We could have let our citizens down if you allow that to happen," Airtel Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gopal Vittal said in his address.
 
A country-specific 5G standard could increase costs for operators and create issues regarding interoperability. Vittal said there was a need to create an open ecosystem to promote applications developed for India. He also urged the government to make spectrum and fibre availability affordable.
 
Vodafone Idea CEO Ravinder Takkar said the telecom sector had the opportunity to get the bottom-of-the-pyramid citizens to adopt digital to ensure inclusive growth.
 
“Rural teledensity is just 59 per cent versus 134 per cent  urban teledensity and nearly 450-million existing mobile subscribers are still not connected to broadband or don’t own a smartphone," he said.
 
 "We are prepared to address both these opportunities, building on our strong network, information technology, people capability, and customer connect. We intend to collaborate with the existing ecosystem players and vibrant start-ups to drive this exciting future," added Takkar.