Breaking Jio announces 5G Beta trial program with unlimited 5G in select cities

[Esmail]

Decade really? I don't think its possible. Jio will make it mandatory for everyone to use 5G by 2027-2028.

End of this decade is 8 years away in 2030 and there is a reason it's called LTE which itself stands for long term evolution. Ambani's focus right now is on making India 2G mukt which is a technology which has lasted for two and a half decades already. And for these upgrading users 4G will be the entry point into the mobile data ecosystem since they have been voice only users and are already skipping 3G to enter 4G, you can't expect them to skip two generations and catapult directly into 5G.
Also it's true that the newer smartphone shipments will be majorly dominated by 5G enabled ones as chip manufacturers shift focus towards the newer technology platform, but what you can't ignore is that the Indian market is seeing a growing demand in the refurbished smartphone segment. When users like you and me upgrade our phones every 2 to 3 years to keep in sync with the latest technology, we sell our old phones to Cashify or Flipkart and Amazon buyback programs and these get bought by the users from the lower strata of society and these phones will stay in circulation till at least the end of the decade.

 

[TheAndroidFreak]

Whatever you said is true, but this time it wont last that much. We are already 2G mukt. I have been spiti leh ladakh last year on bike trip and Jio is the only operator having coverage there. Have been to Mussorie last month and Airtel and Vi doesn't even have coverage on villages. Forget highways. Many villages have only Jiophones bought at 1999 along with unlimited 2 years of voice calling due to Jio only coverage in their villages. Airtel and Vi is totally finished at the end of next year if Jio carries this unlimited 5G offer by 2023 end. Still it's at 899 for unlimited voice calls if you recharge after you finish two year pack. itel Magic X Pro launched yesterday with dual VoLTE at 2999, these kind of phones have been sold quiet a bit in last two years due to WFH culture and excellent signal strength in far flung areas. 700Mhz+600Mhz will boost the 5G usage in next five years. As per Jio engineers in Mumbai, Jio wanted to buy band 3 and 600Mhz as well this auction. But 600Mhz ecosystem is not ready and band 3 is not available. To shift band 40 to 5G, Jio want band 3 20Mhz PAN India, its not available yet. I guess, in next four years many of Airtel and Vi band 3 will be put back into auction or new band will be put into auction. Definitely Vi band 3 will be put. At that time Jio will buy all of those and will do PAN India 20Mhz and move band 40 to 5G. Phones under 30K category itself now supports N40-N78. That time even lower end midrange phones will support this and will help Jio to do that. At the most you will see band 3+5 on LTE by 2026 end. Not beyond that. Load on Jio band 5 is so much that, I wish the cap criteria gets removed and Jio acquires all the 15Mhz in band 5 for better voice quality. Band 8 from Vi and Airtel has became literally empty and giving 70-80Mbps throughout the day on 10Mhz in respective circles.

 

[TheAndroidFreak]

Both have same SOC A15 Bionic and both have Qualcomm Snapdragon X60 5G Modem

Earlier there used to be different modems for different units of same model. Even display panels are from LG/Samsung/BOE/JDI. Apple procures different parts from different suppliers to get ready with production units. I said about modem because they have started using their own antenna units and not from Qualcomm. That can be seen in the range of 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max.




I am not speculating anything. Nowhere VoNR is tested yet. Not even in China. China has more 5G BTS than anywhere else in the world. Even though Ambani is no slouch, it will take time. VoLTE for couple of years. With VoNR, cost of 5G packs will increase by huge margin. This time Ambani means business. You will see.

 

[Esmail]

I wish the cap criteria gets removed and Jio acquires all the 15Mhz in band 5 for better voice quality.

There is no intra band cap that's preventing Jio from buying 15 MHz in band 5, in fact they already have 15 MHz in Mumbai in that band. The cap is 50% of the total available spectrum in 600+700+850+900 MHz bands combined and since Jio doesn't hold any spectrum in 600 and 900 MHz bands, it gives them plenty of leg space to buy as much as they want in 700 and 850 MHz bands.

 

[TheAndroidFreak]

But they are planning to buy 600Mhz for sure. Jio top network team always thinks ahead with respect to time. They have sent the team to study the coverage of 600Mhz of TMobile in US(along with FWA on mmWave from Verizon). Its even better than 700Mhz.Next year more spectrum is freed up for 600Mhz and mostly TMobile will get all of it. That time Jio is planning to send team once again after its deployed, so that its ready to buy 10Mhz in 600Mhz once its put into auction and ecosystem is developed fully under 20K category. Airtel won't be buying 600Mhz+700Mhz together as they don't want to spend 80000-90000 Crore in one go. They are already behind due to NSA core and band 3/40/1 getting utilized for 5G handset and speedtest and experience is ruined for postpaid elite consumers in urban areas. Airtel runs profitable due to this elite postpaid consumers. With Jio running unlimited 5G for an year(technically free), these Airtel postpaid consumers will run towards prepaid segment and will degrade their revenue making it difficult for Airtel to upgrade their network to 5G within time line. 4G was different. Now 5G is different ballgame altogether. 700Mhz will make difference for sure. But only 25Mhz availability is not enough. Both 700Mhz and 600Mhz should have been available with 50Mhz of total spectrum at disposal. 10Mhz+10Mhz+15Mhz(600Mhz+700Mhz+850Mhz) will give them enough coverage PAN India by 2028. Everything takes time in India. We don't have resolution yet on RCom+Aircel, valuable spectrum in band 1 is sitting their idle. I hope it happens before next auction. BSNL is big headache now if they don't launch 4G on 900Mhz and 2100Mhz this year.

The cap is 50% of the total available spectrum in 600+700+850+900 MHz bands combined and since Jio doesn't hold any spectrum in 600 and 900 MHz bands

 

[d5aqoep]

@TheAndroidFreak Can you split the above into small paragraphs instead of this huge wall of text. I can't muster the courage to read it.

Just a suggestion.....

 

[Esmail]

700Mhz will make difference for sure. But only 25Mhz availability is not enough.

Now BSNL has also asked DoT to swap it's 10 MHz in 600 MHz band for 10 MHz in 700 MHz band since 600 MHz lacks the ecosystem. So 700 MHz available to private operators may get further reduced.

 

[TheAndroidFreak]

Now BSNL has also asked DoT to swap it's 10 MHz in 600 MHz band for 10 MHz in 700 MHz band since 600 MHz lacks the ecosystem. So 700 MHz available to private operators may get further reduced.

Jio won't buy more than 10Mhz in any band in sub-Ghz. It creates problem in future due to rules which you mentioned. I mentioned Jio should have got more band 5 because of voice calls issue since 2019 end till now, also VoNR is not developed yet. So extra load of 5G customers. Seeing speed difference between Airtel and Jio on 5G, more people will shift to Jio 5G. But again voice calls will be through VoLTE. That thing is gone now in Mumbai circle after addition of 5Mhz in band 5.

 

[TheAndroidFreak]

Now BSNL has also asked DoT to swap it's 10 MHz in 600 MHz band for 10 MHz in 700 MHz band since 600 MHz lacks the ecosystem. So 700 MHz available to private operators may get further reduced.

BSNL should not get anything. Band 1/41 is also should be withdrawn immediately.

 

[Sayantan]

Any news about jio 5g launch in ROB circle ?