Reliance Jio seeks govt permission for 5G trials: Report

Mukesh Ambani-led telecom firm Reliance Jio has applied for permission from the government to undertake 5G trials based on technology and design developed by the company, said a news report.

The development comes after Jio recently planned to broaden its 5G trial runs with Chinese giant Huawei Technologies, Ericsson, and Nokia Networks. Till date, Samsung has been Jio's supplier for 4G network equipment.

"If the 5G technology foray was successful, the design and technology for equipment could be outsourced for manufacturing to third-party players," said a Business Standard report quoting sources close to the development.

When contacted by Entrackr, Jio spokesperson said the report of it approaching the government for 5G trial is speculative.

Last year, RIL had announced an investment of Rs 20,000 crore to expedite its 5G and e-commerce play. Since then, Reliance has been working on building its research and development team around technology and design.

Jio's competitors are also planning to roll out 5G trials. Last year, Airtel had a partnership with Ericsson for 5G-ready cloud packet core. Airtel plans to bid for 5G spectrum. Whereas Vodafone has signed a partnership with a couple of players including Huawei. All these telecom companies are currently dealing with adjusted gross revenue (AGR) issues.

Last year in December, the government had said that it would provide telecom operators and equipment makers spectrum for 5G trials.

In the last couple of years, the government had also been pushing for developing design and manufacturing capacity of telecom equipment.

In August 2018, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had published suggestions for promoting local telecom equipment manufacturing which pushed for local designing and manufacturing of telecom network equipment.

The cumulative impact of 5G in India would be $1 trillion by 2035, as per a KPMG report.