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Reliance Jio was the only Indian telco to report growth in its number of subscribers last month, according to an independent report by the Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India
India’s disruptive champion, Reliance Jio, has said that it wants to help the Indian government fast track digitalisation on the sub-continent, transforming the everyday lives of millions of people, through a series of 5G use case tests.
Speaking exclusively at the Great Telco Debate in London on Thursday, Dr Steffen Roehn, senior advisor to Reliance Jio, said that the company was on track to bring next generation connectivity across the sub-continent.
"It’s something that I have never experienced before, this level of ambition and scale in terms of achieving that final target.
"Our ultimate aim was to become the platform that enabled Digital India. We want to ensure that every single person in India could have access to mobile broadband, if they wanted it. That’s a huge ambition to have.
"To translate that dream into reality, you have to take care of the micro-details that are important to your customers," Roehn said.
Reliance Jio now provides mobile broadband services to over 220 million people in India, adding 13.02 million new subscribers in the las quarter alone. Reliance Jio has brought mobile broadband to the masses and has been instrumental in driving India’s digital revolution, through the provision of ultra-low-cost data tariffs and smartphone handsets.
"You have to appreciate that India has been so underserved in the past, in terms of its digital transformation. It’s an enormous market and it requires a lot of work from all the players to fix the congestion problems that they are having.
Roehn said that the company was now focussing on a series of 5G E-health use cases that would help to revolutionise life for millions of people in rural India.
"We are working on some really interesting proof of concepts and use cases for 5G.
"India has a hugely underserved population when it comes to access to doctors or decent medical services. This is an enormous opportunity for us to improve the lives of many, many people, by enabling remote access to medical services via their smartphones.
"Probably, we are not going to make a lot of money from this, but it’s an opportunity to improve the quality of life for millions of people and it fits into our brief of achieving a truly Digital India," he said.
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