Jio Deploys 5G-NR Country-wide, Details of UBR based Jio AirFiber

From the very beginning of deployment of cellular technology, India had behaved like any 3rd world country - late deployment, poor services and poor adaption. However since 2015 the perception gradually has been changed, all thanks to Mukesh Ambani backed Reliance Industries' telecom arm - Jio. 

Now Jio has launched 5G-SA and brought 5G-FWA (fixed wireless access) to connect homes with wireless broadband. Initially Airtel with their 5G-NSA could not enter into 5G-FWA market as 5G core is very much essential for roll out 5G-FWA, but they now entered into 5G-FWA market with their limited 5G-SA deployment. 

Coffees in India - Listing of new brands.

Over a cup of coffee

Coffee is an interesting drink, common to most Indian household, be it north India or south India. Coffee is not a native to India, rather in 17th century Sufi saint Baba Budan brought coffee seeds from Yemen, and started coffee plantation in Chikmagalur, a hill station on the Western Ghats, in Karnataka. Hence most of the coffee production are done in southern states like Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra and Maharashtra. Other states are Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura are also producing some amount of coffee.

Nescafé, owned by multinational company Nestlé is probably the most popular coffee brand in India. Next is Bru, now owned by Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) - which was launched in India in 1968. Tata Coffee, with history of more than 90 years is another popular name among Indian coffee lovers. Others names include Davidoff - the luxury coffee brand, Cafe based Starbucks India and Coffee Day. The later mentioned coffee cafes like Starbucks, Café Coffee Day, Costa Coffee (now owned by Coca Cola) and Barista (https://www.barista.co.in) are also creating the traction of coffee popularity across the country. 

Private 5G: BSNL Cracked Two Deals

Indian operators are banking on FWA to make 5G tech monetized, but the most effort on FWA is being played by Jio. The next monetizing factor could be deployment of private 5G networks. First trial of private 5G network was done by Airtel, back in July 2022, at Bosch Automotive Electronics India Pvt Ltd's facility in Bengaluru using trial 5G spectrum allocated by the Department of Telecom (DoT). 

But private 5G network is not getting much demand from the enterprises, as many want to deploy bypassing the present telecom operators - as the companies want their own spectrum and will bring their own technology partner to deploy private 5G. Even if the business sector starts working with the telcos, the spectrum will be another issue. 

Road to 6G: 5G to 5G Advanced and 6G

When Chromebook was first launched in India in 2013, we were yet to get 4G. That time 3G from Indian operators was patchy, slow and too much costly! Airtel just launched 4G in 2012, which was not welcomed by the users. I could not take that cloud computing in India could be a future with such slow speed. 

Cut to post-COVID era, many are still working from home with the help of Cloud computing. India got 4G in 2012 but 4G went mainstream when Jio started offering free 4G data w.e.f. December 2015. Now 5G was launched in India in October 2022 by both Jio and Airtel - and both are offering free unlimited 5G data on the top of selected 4G plans. India's 5G adoption was very fast, and at par with global rollouts. 

BSNL to Launch 4G with Indigenous Gears, Jio too Switching to Desi

Despite multiple delays to launch 4G services, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) - the state owned telecommunications service provider is seemed to be on the track to roll out the much awaited 4G-LTE services across the circles very soon.

As per the deal signed in August 2023, Tejas Networks-led consortium would be delivering 4G sites to BSNL worth Rs 7492 crore. Initially there was extensive trials run across the circles. On May 5, 2025 Tata backed telecom gear firm Tejas Networks announced that the company shipped more than 100,000 sites for BSNL's 4G/5G-ready network. This is one of the largest single-vendor RAN networks in the world ever delivered in record time. 

Jio Cracked the Code for 5G Monetization: It's Fixed Wireless Access (FWA)

JioAirFiber holds approx 85% of 5G-FWA market

While Jio and Airtel are the prominent 5G player in the country, both telcos are yet to find a case of monetization of 5G - many call it as odd 5G means poor business. But as per the latest TRAI data, Jio cracked the code - FWA helps them to generate revenue from 5G. 

As the data published by TRAI at the end of April, 2025 which is the first time for TRAI to differentiate 5G FWA separately from wireline broadband, highlighting rising importance of 5G-FWA as a key revenue stream for telcos. TRAI started counting 5G-FWA data from January 2025. 

Vi 5G Launched in Mumbai, Check out 5G Plans of Vi

Before the end of Financial year 2024-25, country's third largest wireless service provider, Vi has launched 5G in Mumbai. The company will bring 5G in other 4 circles by April 2025 - in Bihar, Delhi, Karnataka and Punjab. 

Like others, Vi has brought 5G plans starting from Rs 299 with introductory unlimited 5G data along with daily 1GB or 1.5GB or 2GB data on 4G network. All plans except the basic 299 plan, have unlimited night data, weekend data rollover and back up data of 2GB. While Jio's True5G plans, though, start with Rs 198 but comes with 2GB/day 4G data with only 14 days of validity and JioTV and JioAICloud subscriptions. Most of the Jio's True5G plans come with atleast 2GB per day data. Jio's annual 5G plan costs same as Vi's INR3599, but packs 2.5GB/day, 90 days of JioHotstar subscription, 50GB of Jio Cloud storage - but with Free Night data and Weekend rollover I would say Vi's 5G annual pack is better than Jio. 

Vi had plan to launch 5G in 75 cities of key 17 circles by March, 2025 but they missed the deadline.