Made in India 5-G solution

In a major announcement, which will resonate with the votaries of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday revealed that Jio has developed a completely indigenous 5G solution, which will stamp out the need for a company to depend on thirdparty vendors, including Chinese telecom major Huawei.

Hyping it as a 'Made in India’ 5G solution, Ambani promised that the transition from 4G to 5G will be easy, and said that once it is set up, the company aims to offer it to other global telecom operators.

The "Made-in-India" technology can be harnessed in a year's time once spectrum is available, he said.

In another major announcement, the RIL CMD announced that Google will invest Rs 33,737 crore and pick up a 7.7 per cent stake in Jio Platforms Ltd.

‘‘Google and Jio are partnering to build an Android-based operating system that could power a value engineered, entry level 4G/5G smartphone,’’ Ambani said.

‘‘Through this partnership, we can accelerate the national mission of putting a smart device in the hands of every Indian," the industrialist, whose wealth has recently surpassed that of Warren Buffett, explained. Interestingly, world's two largest technology companies and rivals, Google and Facebook, are both investors in Jio. While Google is looking at a Rs 33,737 crore investment, Facebook had picked up a 9.9 per cent stake in late April for Rs 43,574 crore.

Even though India has the world’s second-largest internet user base, there is still a huge untapped consumer base. In 2019, India had 560 million internet users, which is still under 50% of its total population.