Jio Platforms and Qualcomm bring India a step closer to 5G

Reliance Industries Limited or RIL stated on Wednesday that its Jio Platforms has decided to collaborate with US-based chipmaker Qualcomm technologies in order to localise the manufacturing of critical 5G equipment in India.

In case you forgot, both companies had previously partnered with each other in order to develop an open and interoperable interface compliant architecture-based 5G solutions complete with a virtualized RAN.

Both companies had, in 2020 achieved over a 1 Gbps milestone on the Jio 5GNR solution by making use of the chipmaker’s 5G RAN Platforms. The US-based chipmaker Qualcomm had also invested $97 million in Jio Platforms in 2020 to strengthen the overall partnership.

What do we know about this collaboration?
Oddly, Qualcomm has also joined hands with Jio’s nemesis Bharti Airtel for the telco’s 5G rollout in the country. As part of the partnership, the telco will utilise the chipmaker’s 5G RAN platforms to roll out virtualised and open-RAN 5G networks in India.

Jio has already worked on and developed an end-to-end 5G stack consisting of a 5G radio and core network solutions. Furthermore, as per ET Telecom, RIL also revealed that the telco has already completed the testing of its 5G radio and core solution, which will now allow for a self-sufficient and cost-effective rollout.

As of now, Reliance Jio is preparing for 5G field trials after having received trial spectrum from the Department of Telecommunications or DoT. The telco will be testing its own 5G technology but, it will also be working with its 4G partner Samsung alongside the likes of Ericsson and Nokia.

As part of its RIL annual report, the company stated that India was at the forefront of the global digital revolution. Jio is also accelerating the rollout of digital platforms and indigenously developed next-generation 5G stack, making it affordable and available everywhere. It also added that the telecom operator’s radio frequency capacity and coverage for 5G networks is already operational based on 4G data traffic profile.

RIL has also revealed that Jio Platforms is working in collaboration with Original Equipment Manufacturers or OEMs in order to standardise 5G device configurations. In a statement, RIL mentioned that with 5G technology, Indian subscribers will be able to experience the benefits of higher data rates as well as low latency communications and enhanced digital experiences across a wide array of connected devices, from 5G-enabled smartphones, enterprise laptops and AR/VR products to vertical IoT solutions. TelecomTalk