Jio Installs 1 Lakh Towers to Accelerate India’s 5G Rollout, According to Department of Telecom Data Emissions

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio has installed nearly 1 lakh telecom towers, nearly 5 times its nearest competitors, to roll out India’s fastest and deepest 5G telecom network to deliver internet at very high speed, according to the latest data from the DoT.

The latest daily status report from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) National EMF Portal shows that Jio has installed 99,897 BTS (Base Transceiver Station) on 2 frequencies it owns (700 MHz and 3,500 MHz ). In comparison, Bharti Airtel has 22,219 BTS.

Moreover, for each base station, Jio has 3 cell sites while Airtel has 2, according to the March 23 report. More towers and cell sites mean faster speed. According to the Feb. 28 report from Ookla, the global leader in network intelligence and connectivity insights, Jio’s maximum median speed is 506 Mbps (megabytes per second) compared to Airtel’s 268 Mbps.

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

“Data from Speedtest Intelligence shows that median download speeds across India have increased by 115% since before the launch of 5G, from a median download speed of 13.87 Mbps in September 2022 to 29, 85 Mbps in January 2023.” 5G performance has increased among early 5G adopters in most telecom circles, Kolkata reached the fastest median 5G download speeds in January 2023 at over 500 Mbps.

“Jio experienced a higher median 5G download speed of 506.25 Mbps in Kolkata, while Airtel of 268.89 Mbps in Delhi,” he said. Airtel and Jio have ambitious goals in terms of 5G network deployment. “Since the inception of 5G networks, the availability of 5G on 5G-enabled devices has steadily increased, reaching 8.0% for Airtel and 5.1% for Jio,” he said.

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

“Jio’s $25 billion investment appears to be paying off. In January 2023, Jio achieved median 5G download speeds above 400 Mbps in ten telecom circles. Jio’s True 5G network is based on a 5G standalone (5G SA), which does not rely on a 4G LTE network.” While Jio’s initial 5G speeds fluctuated wildly – from low single digits to speeds well over 800 Mbps, which led the operator to recalibrate its networks, Jio’s 5G performance has stabilized over the past four months. In January 2023, early Jio 5G users experienced speeds ranging from 246.49 Mbps median download speed in Himachal Pradesh to 506.25 Mbps in Kolkata,” Ookla said.

By comparison, “early Airtel 5G users experienced speeds ranging from a median download speed of 78.13 Mbps in Kolkata to 268.89 Mbps in Delhi,” he added.

Last month, Akash Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio, during a Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology post-budget webinar, said that India’s largest telecom company would undertake the fastest 5G rollout. fast in the world.

Reliance Jio is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries headed by his father, Mukesh Ambani. Bharti Airtel had said on Friday that its super-fast 5G service was available to customers in 500 cities across the country. “Airtel has added 235 cities to its network, making it one of the largest deployments to date.”

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