The much talked about 5G rollout in India promised a transformation with high-speed internet that could download high quality 4K videos instantly, and connect people with smart cars and smart homes in real time. But that will have to wait until a full fledged rollout of services across the country as Airtel is currently providing 5G through its 4G architecture, while Reliance Jio has set up a standalone infrastructure. The difference between the two is already visible, since data speed meter Ookla has found that Jio’s 5G download speed is significantly higher than that of Airtel.
Jio way ahead of its only rival?
The speedtest concluded that while Airtel’s speed was in the 365.48 Mb per second to 716.85 Mb per second range, Reliance Jio provided downloads at 606.53 Mb per second to 875.26 Mb per second. Jio’s 5G median speed was the highest in Delhi at 600 Mbps and for Airtel it peaked in Varanasi at 516 Mbps. In addition to C-band, Reliance Jio has also secured the 700 Megahertz band, which gives it an advantage over Airtel and Vodafone Idea, both of which only have C-band.
What does the market look like?
The benefit that Reliance Jio enjoys is an upgrade beyond indoor penetration for cities and small towns as well as villages. Currently it only has Airtel as a competitor in the 5G market, since Vodafone Idea is facing a funding hurdle for launching its 5G services. It also aims to cover more cities at 13, as compared to eight targeted by Airtel, and will be expanding more aggressively while Airtel will increase coverage to pan-India levels in a phased manner.
More speed also means higher costs
This also means a higher investment for Reliance Jio, while Airtel can keep prices low initially because of less spending on the network architecture. Before users in India can start making the most of 5G services, devices will also have to be upgraded with the software that supports high speed data in 5G enabled handsets.
