Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani, addressing the India Mobile Congress 2020, confirmed that Reliance Jio will enable 5G connectivity in India in 2021. “I assure you that Jio will pioneer the 5G Revolution in India in the second half of 2021,”said Ambani.
It could be quite possible that Jio launches its own affordable 5G handset to boost penetration. At the 43rd Annual General Meeting in July 2020, Reliance Jio had announced a partnership with Google to introduce an Android-based operating system for affordable smartphones. He also hinted at introducing affordable 5G phones as well.
Policy steps are needed to accelerate early rollout of 5G, and to make it affordable and available everywhere. I assure you that Jio will pioneer the 5G Revolution in India in the second half of 2021. It will be powered by indigenous developed network, hardware and technology components,”he added.he added.
RIL chief also mentioned that as many as 300 million mobile subscribers in India are still on 2G. “Urgent policy steps are needed to ensure that these underprivileged people have an affordable smartphone,so that they too actively participate in the digital economy he stressed.
Ambani also talked about his vision for the semiconductor industry.“India has developed world-class strengths in chip design. I clearly foresee India becoming a major hub for the state-of- the-art semiconductor industry. When all the stakeholders work together, we can surely ensure that India’s success in hardware will match our success in software,” he added.