Reliance Jio turns to UBR to lower 5G FWA deployment costs, launches private network in Jamnagar
Reliance Jio
has, in recent months, also started using
unlicensed band radio
(UBR) equipment for provisioning fifth-generation (
5G
)-driven fixed wireless access (FWA) service to incrementally lower the cost for connecting homes via ultrafast wireless broadband, a top executive of the India's largest telecom operator said.
'In this particular product, which has gone live in the market over the last few months, we have been deploying a fair bit of fixed wireless on our 5G spectrum and also UBR. We have developed and deployed, so it is in commercial use,' said Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy, Reliance Jio Infocomm, at Reliance Industries' most recent post-earnings call.
Thakur said the network configuration is allowing Jio to use a single radiating gear to serve multiple users, which in turn, is lowering the cost of deployment. 'So the cost that we incur to connect every new home is incrementally much less than what you would hear about companies elsewhere, which are doing such a thing,' he said.
An unlicensed band radio equipment operates in frequency ranges that do not require a license from the
Department of Telecommunications
(DoT) for usage. In India, the 2.5GHz, 5GHz, and some lower bands have been delicensed for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other applications.
'If the fiber is available, we connect the customer with fiber, but otherwise with our 5G spectrum, in some cases, UBR, we know exactly what kind of throughput different technologies will provide to customers,' Thakur said.
The Mumbai-headquartered telecom carrier had an 85% market share in the FWA services segment, with a 5.6 million customer base, at the end of FY25. It added 1.2 million fixed broadband subscribers in the fiscal quarter that ended March 2025, with half of the new additions coming from tier-3 and tier-4 towns.
'UBR is now commercially live, even in situations where we do not have a direct line of sight, which has been a big challenge just about every operator globally,' he said.
As per the top executive, nearly all of Jio's equipment is being manufactured by the telco. 'We feel confident of connecting 100 million homes, a target we have set for ourselves,' he said.
Thakur, however, did not state a timeline for achieving 100 million connected homes, but clarified that it will be done with a combination of JioFiber (FTTH service) and JioAirFiber (FWA service).
'The numbers have been ramping up (for FWA). And the fact that we have been able to do that very successfully using both our 5G spectrum as well as the UBR radio gives us the confidence that the last mile challenges that we have faced in the past while connecting customers, we will be able to overcome by doing this wirelessly,' he said.
FWA market potential
With Jio and rival
Bharti Airtel
targeting major 5G FWA ramp-ups alongside FTTH, bundled and pay TV services, these combined could be a $11-15 billion annual revenue opportunity, brokerage CLSA said in a recent research note.
'Led by Reliance Jio's leadership and Bharti Airtel's execution, this new opportunity will be in addition to India mobile revenue growing from the current $30 billion to $39 billion by FY27CL,' it had said.
Jio makes strides in private 5G
Thakur said Jio has commercially deployed instances of private 5G, enabled by dedicated network slices, at some industrial premises, including in Jamnagar.
'Our whole network core, 4G and 5G, is completely deployed by us. It is our proprietary core. And we can create private instance of that for our enterprise customers. We have already deployed in some of the industrial situations, industrial premises, including in Jamnagar,' the executive said.
The private 5G has enabled use cases around robotic automation, video surveillance, and enhanced security, supported by ultra-reliable and low-latency bandwidth. 'We are able to do network slicing to ensure consistent service delivery irrespective of the amount of load that the network may have at any point in time, and able to provide end-to-end managed services,' Thakur said.
Jio, although did not disclose the names of its private 5G customers, or additional information.
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