Jio Completes 5G Coverage Of All 33 District HQs Of Gujarat

India’s largest telco by customer base Reliance Jio is said to have completed 5G coverage of all 33 district headquarters of Gujarat, its home state. The development ensures Gujarat’s spot as the first state in the country to receive 100% 5G coverage.

Starting Friday (November 25), Jio users would be invited to the Jio Welcome Offer, which would allow them to start using 5G services. For now, the telco will not charge anything additional for users to use 5G.

The telco pointed out that it has a standalone 5G architecture (5G SA) and its network has zero dependencies on 4G, unlike Airtel. Further, Jio has also deployed carrier aggregation for its 5G networks as well, which allows for better connectivity and faster data speeds on the network.

Speaking on the occasion, Akash Ambani, Jio’s chairman, said, “We are proud to share that Gujarat is now the first state to have 100% district headquarters connected with our robust True 5G network. We want to showcase the real power of this technology and how it can impact a billion lives.”

Further, Jio will digitise 100 schools in Gujarat in partnership with Reliance Foundation. The schools would be connected via Jio’s 5G network and applications such as a school management platform, a teacher and student collaboration platform and a content delivery platform.

“Reliance Foundation already runs a program named Education & Sports for All (ESA), where it enables and empowers youth at the grassroots level with quality education and opportunities in sports. Jio and Reliance Foundation will take the ‘Education for All’ initiative to a whole new level by using the powerful 5G tech along with platforms that digitise the schools and bring them at par with the best in India and across the world,” said Ambani about the school digitisation program.

Since launching its 5G networks on October 4, Jio has launched its services in Delhi NCR, Nathdwara, Varanasi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune and Chennai. Jio’s biggest competitor Airtel has also launched 5G services in eight cities.

The government is bullish on 5G and has been pushing the telcos to roll out the next-gen networks as soon as possible. Speaking at a Times Now event, Union Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that 200 Indian cities would have 5G come April 2023, which is a monumental task given there is slightly over a quarter left in the deadline.

Speaking of telcos, Jio is aiming to complete the 5G rollout by December 2023, while Airtel is looking to complete the same by March 2024. Industry experts note that 5G might achieve ubiquity (of at least the same level as 4G right now) by December 2024.