NEW DELHI: Telecom service provider Reliance Jio on Monday completed the minimum 5G rollout obligation by launching 5G network using 26 GHz mmWave spectrum in the country. Earlier Bharti Airtel already announced launching 5G services on 26 GHz spectrum across all 22 telecom circles in accordance to the norms set by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for complying with the Minimum Roll-out obligation criteria.
The country’s third-largest telecom service provider Vodafone Idea is yet to launch commercial 5G services in the country. The loss-making telco has bought 850MHz of mid-band 5G spectrum (3300 MHz) in its 17 priority circles and 5,350MHz mmWave 5G (26 GHz) spectrum in 16 circles.
It informed the government that it had launched 5G service in Delhi and Pune on a trial basis. Meanwhile, country’s largest telco Reliance Jio said with this launch, it has completed its minimum roll-out obligations in each of the 22 Licensed Service Areas (LSA), across each of the spectrum bands, ahead of time under the terms.
“We have of course completed minimum roll-out obligations for 5G spectrum allocated to us. Since receiving the 5G spectrum in August last year, our team has been working round the clock to ensure we keep up pace of 5G roll-out that we had promised to enable pan-India 5G coverage by the end of this year…Benefits of 5G mmWave include high bandwidth and low latency.
This can give enterprises looking to deploy emerging and innovative applications faster speeds and less delay than previous wireless networking technologies,” said Akash Ambani, Chairman, Jio Infocomm. The government mandates telcos to commercially launch services in each of the three major metros —Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai—within a year post-auctions.