5G will be rolled out across India from October 1 and Reliance Jio, the country’s leading mobile operator with 413 million subscribers, will be at the forefront of that. This step can have a transformative effect.
The 5G launch in India will happen via Jio Platforms, the digital services arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani Reliance Industries. In August, during Reliance’s annual general meeting, Ambani told shareholders that the offering would be completed by December 2023 and that the infrastructure investment would be INR 2 trillion ($25 billion).
The majority of Indians watch streaming content on mobile devices. Fixed broadband penetration in the country is low and Reliance aims to fix that with Jio AirFiber, which uses 5G to provide fiber-quality connectivity over the air.
“We have to think and reimagine 5G for India,” Saurabh Sancheti, Group Chief Financial Officer, Jio Platforms, said at the APOS conference in Singapore on Wednesday. Sanchetti is also a nominee director on the boards of cable companies of Reliance, Den Networks, Hathway Cable, and Datacom.
“AirFiber is already able to take over hundreds of millions of homes in India, in a very fast way,” Sanchetti said. “Increasing speeds, improving data consumption, and increasing data consumption will give a boost to video as well. So, I think this will definitely change broadcasting as we know it in India.”
Ambani-backed Viacom18 team recently won a bid for digital rights to the lucrative Indian Premier League cricket tournament. Sanchetti said efforts are underway to transform the entire sports viewing experience from what has until now been just a linear feed on an app.
“Imagine if you could actually stream a live sport, using all the multiple camera angles and you could click any of them and start playing it. And it’s really immersive, because you can replay or rewind or watch the same shot or kick from a different angle, you can combine this with your friends in A live camera in a small window – giving a sense of connectedness, as if you’re watching together at the stadium, Sanchetti said.
Sanchetti said there are a lot of these ideas in the pipeline and the company is “deep in implementation”.
Bodhi Tree Systems, a platform of James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems and former Disney chief Uday Shankar, is investing $1.78 billion in Viacom18. “Our visions are aligned with the way we approach the market,” Sanchetti said. “Clery it’s great to have visionaries like them on board and change the landscape in India.”
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