Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 5G services in India on Saturday, with all three major network operators set to start rollout soon.
India will be an active participant and not just a consumer of 5G technology, Modi said at the India Mobile Congress in New Delhi.
Services will be progressively expanded to cover the whole country over the next two years.
Bharti Airtel Ltd. will start offering 5G in eight cities including New Delhi, Varanasi, Mumbai and Bengaluru starting today. Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said they plan to expand and cover the whole country by March 2024.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani also announced that his telecom firm Reliance Jio is rapidly progressing to roll out 5G services within this month. It will initially start in four cities—Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
Jio's affordable 5G offerings will be available in every part of the country by December 2023, Ambani said.
Vodafone Idea Ltd., too, has plans to start the 5G rollout "soon", Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said.
Birla did not share a timeline for when they plan to expand their coverage across India. They will leverage their strong presence in rural India and among enterprise customers to roll out services, he said.
Besides the launch, telecom operators also demonstrated several use cases for 5G technology.
Jio showcased their 'True 5G' services through Jio Glass, while Airtel demonstrated live use cases across healthcare, agriculture and manufacturing.
Akash Ambani demonstrating the Jio Glass to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Source: IMC)
At the event, the Prime Minister tried his hand at operating a driving simulator that uses 5G technology to run a remote-controlled car in Europe.
(Source: Piyush Goyal's official Twitter handle)
He also spoke to industry representatives about the development of end-to-end 5G technology and how it can help bridge the gap for healthcare delivery.
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