Inside Reliance Jio's Make in India strategy for 5G, IoT to cut dependence on foreign gear

NEW DELHI: In a global first among mobile phone operators, Reliance Jio has developed its own 5G technology as it looks to reduce dependence on foreign vendors and bring cost-related advantages.

The Mukesh Ambani-owned telco has already replaced Nokia and Oracle’s 4G voice technology with its own from its pan-India network, people familiar with the matter said.

The move is perhaps a global first, analysts said, where a mobile phone company has developed in-house technology to replace third-party equipment vendors.

“We have now developed everything end-to-end around 5G technology. We are more scalable than these vendors and are fully automated since we have our own cloud-native platform. In 5G, we will totally be self-sufficient,” the person told ET.

Jio has designed its own hardware for the 5G technology, which could be made in India once 5G trials are successful along with the Internet of Things (IoT) gear. “We can give the design, layouts and board support packages to third-party manufacturers to have our gear made.”

Having developed end-to-end 5G technology, Jio would be able to bring a wide array of use cases like security and surveillance using drones, industrial IoT and digitisation in the agriculture sector. “Broadband and voice will be the baseline of our technology.”

The telco has already informed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and sought its approval to conduct 5G trials based on its own technology. It had recently given a separate presentation to the DoT to explain its technology and possible use cases.

“Our own technology will help us commercially as well as offer flexibility. We can customise use cases and also tailor India specific needs,” the person said.

Jio didn't respond to ET's emailed queries.

Jio has previously applied to carry out 5G trials with European vendors Ericsson and Nokia, China’s Huawei besides and Samsung, a South Korean equipment vendor that is also its sole 4G radio vendor.

Vodafone Idea and Airtel too had submitted their proposals jointly with Ericsson, Nokia, and Chinese giant Huawei, while BSNL is tying up with another Chinese vendor, ZTE.

"Jio is actively looking to build 5G and IoT technology capability in-house through a mix of organic and inorganic approach. The move is unprecedented not only in India but also globally as most operators have relied on technology vendors for network equipment," Ashwinder Sethi, principal at Analysys Mason said.

Rancore technologies, earlier a subsidiary of RIL, was merged with Jio and the acquisition of Radisys further builds upon its 5G and IoT technology capability. These acquisitions accelerated Jio’s in-house development capabilities around open source technologies and NFV adoption, paving way for the development for IoT platform and applications, analysts said.

Jio’s rivals, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone, on the other hand -- as part of their established enterprise businesses -- are already offering IoT services.

Sethi added that Jio’s approach will help it reduce its dependency on third-party vendors as well as customize its technology based on the 5G and IoT standards that will be adopted by India. "It will also be interesting to see whether this approach has cost benefits as well once the 5G technology is commercially deployed by Jio."

Jio’s own IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) solution (vIMS) for VoLTE and VoWiFi is live since October 2019. It was previously using Nokia and Oracle’s IMS and related technology to offer 4G voice service.


“This is for the first time that an Indian product has replaced European and American technologies. Eight billion calls per day and 4.5 billion SMSs per day are now handled on Jio’s own technologies - TAS, IPSMGW and SMSC,” the person added.

In a blog, Nokia's executive Barry French, however, said that Jio replaced "one specific element of Nokia-provided IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) with their own product (our TAS to their CTAS) in the core networks, but there is certainly no IMS swap underway."

The telco has also made strides in the IoT and enterprise domains by developing its in-house technology. “We have developed IoT Core node such as IoT HSS and IoT PCRF.”

A second person privy to the development said that Jio is making steady progress in the enterprise domain using services based on its own technology.

“The Business Telephony system is also in house based on its technology Business TAS (BTAS)…we have connected cloud centrex and sip trunks to hundreds of enterprise sites using it…most of our rivals are using technologies from players like Cisco for this,” he added.

Jio now has commercial customers for enterprise services like SIP trunk, Centrex, Toll-free, Virtual mobile number and IVR in India. “The recent video chat bot is also powered by our BTAS,” the second person said.