Reliance Jio launched its 5G services in Bengaluru and Hyderabad on Thursday. Jio kicked off the rollout by launching its 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Varanasi. Chennai and Rajasthan’s Nathdwara were recently added to the list. With the fresh rollout, Jio’s “true 5G” is now available in beta across eight Indian cities.
The telco dropped some figures while announcing today’s expansion. In a release sent out to the media, Jio said its 5G services are being “experienced by lakhs of users across six cities [Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Varanasi, Chennai and Nathdwara]” already and that users are “experiencing speeds anywhere between 500 Mbps to 1 Gbps on their smartphones,” and “using very high quantities of data.”
Jio is promising unlimited 5G data with up to 1 Gbps+ speeds to users during the ongoing testing phase. There are no plans and tariffs at the time of writing which is to say, Jio 5G is essentially available on users’ existing 4G plan. The beta trials will continue until the network coverage of a city “is substantially complete to provide the best coverage and user experience to every customer,” Jio has previously confirmed.
The catch is, an invite from Jio is mandatory to use these services. Jio is calling it True 5G welcome offer. Invited Jio welcome offer users will be automatically upgraded to Jio 5G without needing to change their existing Jio SIM or 5G handset.
Jio is offering stand-alone 5G with zero dependency on 4G network (Airtel’s 5G in contrast is non-standalone). It is the only telco to have purchased the premium 700 megahertz low-band spectrum in addition to the 3500 MHz mid-band and the 26 GHz millimetre-wave band. It would combine these frequencies into a single powerful “data highway” through Carrier Aggregation for a seemingly more seamless connectivity experience for end-users.
The Mukesh Ambani-led company has made a total investment of 2 lakh crore to build its 5G network, most of which is being billed as “made in India.” Jio plans to deliver 5G to “every town, every taluka, and every tehsil of our country by December 2023.”
