Jio installs 1 lakh towers for deepest 5G network penetration

Reliance Jio has installed close to 1 lakh telecom towers, nearly 5 times of its nearest competition, to roll out India’s fastest and deepest penetration 5G telecom network to provide ultra-high speed internet, according to latest DoT data.

The latest daily status report from Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT) National EMF Portal shows Jio has installed 99,897 BTS (base transceiver station) across 2 frequencies it owns (700 MHz and 3,500 MHz). In comparison, Bharti Airtel has 22,219 BTS.

Additionally, for every base station, Jio has 3 cell sites while Airtel has 2, the March 23 report said. The more tower and cell sites means faster speed. According to the February 28 report of Ookla, the global leader in network intelligence and connectivity insights, Jio’s top median speed is 506 Mbps (megabytes per second) as compared to 268 Mbps of Airtel.

“5G has been in place in India for over four months and already it’s having a tremendous impact on the state of mobile in the country,” Ookla said in the report.

“Jio experienced a top median 5G download speed of 506.25 Mbps in Kolkata, while Airtel of 268.89 Mbps in Delhi,” it said. Airtel and Jio have ambitious targets in terms of 5G network rollout.

India has over half a billion internet users, making it the second-largest online market worldwide, just behind China. 5G telecom services were launched in October 2022.

Last month, Akash Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio, had at a post budget webinar of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology stated that India’s largest telecom company will undertake the fastest 5G rollout in the world. PTI