Can Jio Lead 5G Market War?

After the 4G mania is settling down, operators worldwide are preparing themselves to the next generation networking capabilities which is also known as 5G ( 5th Generation ) Network. With the entry of Reliance Jio in 2016, there is a crushing and aggressive competition in the market of Data and Mobile Networks. Hence, it is no surprise that all the major operators are spending substantial amount of money, time and efforts to improve their stance and status by preparing themselves for upcoming 5G network domination in India.

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WhitePaper by TRAI - Enabling 5G in India

But the question is how prepared are the telcos to take a lead? Few reports are coming in which indicates Reliance Jio might be current leader in this race. SBI Cap securities has released a statement indicating Reliance Jio Infocomm is likely to launch 5G services by the second half of 2020, accelerating its rollout to stop rivals Vodafone Idea (VIL) and Bharti Airtel. The brokerage said Jio’s move to fast-track 5G plans is likely driven by mega fundraising plans lately announced by VIL and Bharti Airtel to enhance 4G capacities.

Rajiv Sharma, co-head of research at SBICap Securities, said he expects the government to auction 5G spectrum by January 2020. Jio is the only telecom operator which has backed an early sale of 5G airwaves. Both Bharti Airtel and VIL have opposed an early auction. Sharma said he expects Jio to make “a decisive 5G upgrade next year to make competition from Airtel and VIL on the 4G front irrelevant, in its bid to maintain leadership in fast broadband technology, thought and revenue market share fronts.

Bharti Airtel and VIL are expected to raise as much as Rs 50,000 crore from their planned rights distribution and tower asset sales. This move could narrow the gap with Jio in 4G services in all key urban markets. “Jio’s early move to 5G is inevitable to sustain market share gains, and we see it selectively deploying nextgen wireless broadband technology by the second half of 2020,” said Sharma.

If most funds raised by VIL and Airtel are deployed in expanding 4G capacity, they could together claim 425 million subscribers, sufficient to upgrade all existing 2G users to 4G, which would make it tough for Jio to gain more market share, post 9-12 months.

Jio did it again... Retains Crown as Top Download Speed Provider

Since its launch in 2016, Jio has shown a tremendous performance when it comes to the download speed. The values are out of the chart in comparison with its competitors. Other telcos have failed to come anywhere near to the values in this section, however Jio has few pitfalls too like the performance in upload speed and remote and rural connectivity.

As per the latest statistics by TRAI, Jio has retained its crown as undisputed leader in the arena of high download speeds. Jio has registered a top download speed of 20.9 mbps which is a significant improvement from previous record of 18.8 mbps.

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Second is position is Bharti Airtel with its speed of 9.4 mbps as against 9.5 mbps in previous month. Vodafone has taken third position with a constant download speed of 6.7Mbps. Idea Cellular has performed the worst among India’s top four operators, but has shown marginal improvement by increasing its speed from 5.5Mbps in January to 5.7Mbps in February.

In terms of upload speeds, Vodafone has tops the chart with 6 mbps where as its partner company Idea has clocked a upload speed of 5.8 mbps which is a decline from previous month results of 5.8 mbps. Reliance Jio has remained third in the upload speeds chart, continuing its trend of marginal increase over the past three months to improve from 4.4Mbps in January, to 4.5Mbps in February. Bharti Airtel, on the other hand, has continued its trend of marginal decline over the past three months, to post 3.7Mbps monthly average upload speeds in February, down from 3.8Mbps in January.

While one can notice few marginal changes in the performance of various telcos, they are not too sharp. This indicates a slow progress on part of telcos to improve the performances. One more interesting observation is the declining performance of certain operators from previous months which needs to be matter of concern for our country. The factors which are influencing these negative changes are or could be controlled? If yes, then it is right time for the various operators to look into showing a continual improvement as the competition is becoming extremely aggressive.