Telcos, phone makers in discussion for affordable rollout of 5G: Report

Mukesh Ambani on Monday announced that RIL will invest Rs 2 trillion to launch 5G mobile internet services in India's key metro cities by Diwali

Telecom firms and smartphone companies are looking to collaborate to provide affordable options for 5G phones and connections as rollout nears, reported The Economic Times on Thursday, quoting industry executives and handset makers. 

According to officials, subsidising the device cost and offering a 5G connection may not be enough or easy, as a result, to offer attractive offers to users, carriers are exploring bundling in unlimited data, OTT services, and gaming, among others, reported ET. 

Realme India is working with Bharti Airtel for its C-series models, company CEO Madhav Seth told  ET. 

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"We are already working with telcos closely for testing 5G services, along with exploring bundling offers for consumers. We have already started doing that with Airtel for our C-series smartphones," Sheth told the newspaper.

"These are data add-ons, cashback, etc. Any Airtel user gets Rs 750 off when buying the Realme C30," he told ET.

Realme will eventually try to apply the same strategy with multiple devices, he said.

While other smartphone companies are yet to announce such partnerships for the affordable rollout of the 5G network, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Samsung said previously that they were working with telecom firms on various consumer use cases.

This comes after Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Monday announced that the company will invest Rs 2 trillion to launch 5G mobile internet services in India by Diwali in key metro cities, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru. Subsequently, the company will increase its footprint to deliver Jio 5G in every part by December 2023.