NEW DELHI: Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday hinted at the rollout of 5G telecommunications services in the second half of 2021, saying policy steps they are needed to accelerate the early launch of ultra-high-speed 5G services that are affordable and available everywhere.
Ambani, whose four-year-old telecommunications company Jio has taken the top spot in offering free voice and data calls at very cheap rates, also proposed the development of hardware manufacturing in India, saying the nation can not depend on imports in such a critical area.
5G is the fifth generation mobile network that connects virtually everyone and everything together, including machines, objects and devices.
India, he said, is today among the best digitally connected nations in the world.
“To maintain this leadership, political steps are needed to accelerate the early launch of 5G and make it affordable and available everywhere,” he said. “I assure you that Jio will pioneer the 5G revolution in India in the second half of 2021.”
Jio’s 5G will be powered by indigenously developed network, hardware and technology components. “Jio’s 5G service will be a testament to his inspiring vision for AtmaNirbhar Bharat.”
Jio and other service providers such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea offer 4G services. However, the country also has a 2G network that only supports voice calls and text messages.
“Up to 300 million mobile subscribers in India are still trapped in the 2G era. Urgent political steps are needed to ensure that these disadvantaged people have an affordable smartphone so that they too can benefit from the direct transfer of benefits to their bank accounts, and actively participate in the digital economy, ”he said.
India has more than 1 billion phone users.
Your company offers low-priced smartphones that allow Internet access.
“I can say with the utmost confidence that 5G will allow India not only to participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but also to lead it,” he said.
As the digitization of the Indian economy and society accelerates, the demand for digital hardware will grow enormously.
“We cannot rely on large-scale imports into this area of critical national need,” Ambani, President and Managing Director of Dependency industries Ltd, he said.
Noting that many world-leading companies are coming to India to establish manufacturing facilities, he said the country has developed world-class strengths in chip design.
“I clearly anticipate that India will become an important center for the cutting edge semiconductor industry,” he said. “When all stakeholders work together, we can surely ensure that India’s success in hardware will match our success in software.”
Jio Platforms, with its family of more than 20 emerging partners, has built world-class capabilities in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, machine learning, the Internet of things, and blockchain.
“We are creating attractive local solutions in education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services and new commerce,” he said. “Each of these solutions, once tested in India, will be offered to the rest of the world to address global challenges.”
Ambani said that India has a historic opportunity to become the world’s preeminent digital society with ease of life for all.
“My conviction comes from the enormous transformative power of digital technologies,” he said.
India, he said, has two unique strengths: the confluence of three Ds: vibrant democracy, young demographics and digital transformation, and the visionary and dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While the COVID-19 outbreak posed life-threatening challenges, high-speed 4G connectivity infrastructure has proven to be India’s digital lifeline, he said.
Throughout 2020, India worked online, studied online, shopped online, received health care online, socialized online, played online. “Simply put, India prospered online.”
With the coronavirus-induced recession behind, Ambani said that the Indian economy will not only recover, but will also grow with an unprecedented acceleration.
“India can, and India will, prove the cynics wrong by becoming a $ 5 trillion economy,” he said. “It will be a more egalitarian India, with higher income, more jobs and a better quality of life for one billion Indians at the middle and bottom of the economic pyramid.”
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