Latest news with #UBR
Time of India
3 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Jio's self-built 5G stack draws global attention
A senior executive of Reliance Industries said the self-developed end-to-end 5G stack of Reliance Jio , the conglomerate's telecom arm, is gaining recognition globally and is a potential monetisable opportunity. 'It (Jio) is one of the leading deep tech companies in India with enormous amounts of innovation and technology development that we have done over the years,' Anshuman Thakur, senior vice president, Reliance Industries, said at the company's earnings call on Friday. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Select a Course Category Technology Cybersecurity others Finance Data Science Project Management Data Science Operations Management Product Management Artificial Intelligence MBA Public Policy Management Digital Marketing Others Data Analytics Healthcare Design Thinking healthcare PGDM CXO Leadership MCA Degree Skills you'll gain: Duration: 12 Weeks MIT xPRO CERT-MIT XPRO Building AI Prod India Starts on undefined Get Details Reliance Jio is an unlisted subsidiary of Jio Platforms, which holds Reliance Industries' telecom and digital businesses. 'Today this technology, this tech stack, the entire value chain, the whole software, hardware stack is only available with us and has been deployed at scale,' Thakur said. 'All the global operators are looking at us to see how we have done this so successfully. And then a whole bunch of initiatives on AI.' The latest addition to the telecom tech stack is the multi-point UBR technology for home connections, which global telcos have tried to replicate but failed, he said. UBR enables multiple home connections through a single 5G cell site targeting 50%-60% homes within a micro-cluster using a single transmission tower, bringing down deployment costs. 'We are the first to deploy UBR for UBR-based connectivity at scale. This is a technology that operators worldwide have tried to work on and have not had much success,' he said. UBR is the innovation child of Mimosa Networks , the US-based communications equipment maker which Jio Platforms acquired for $60 million through its wholly owned subsidiary Radisys Corporation in August 2023. Majority of Jio's UBR equipment are manufactured by US-based Sanmina Corporation, which has a joint venture with Reliance Industries in India. During the June quarter, Jio crossed the milestone of 20 million home connections, 7.4 million of which were AirFiber FWA (fixed wireless access) connections scaled with UBR tech. The telco now has 82% market share in 5G FWA connections in India. Analysts are bullish on Jio's strong customer additions and cost benefits from technology ownership after Q1 and have raised Jio's enterprise valuation. 'Jio's 5G tech stack, core, software, hardware and BSS/OSS are all in-house and proprietary,' brokerage firm IIFL Securities said in a report. 'This enables quicker revenue ramp-up due to lower dependence of vendors, lower costs due to licence fee savings, customisation/scale-up of configuration based on requirements, and potential monetisation by selling to global telcos.' IIFL has raised Jio's valuation to $134.2 billion (Rs11.2 lakh crore) from $133.9 billion it had said earlier. Equity research firm Jefferies also raised its revenue estimates by 1-4% to factor in the changes to subscriber assumptions and lower access/network costs. 'We believe RJio remains well-placed to deliver 18%/22% CAGR in revenues/EBITDA over FY25-28, given rising tariffs in mobile and scaleup of home broadband business . We raise our EV (enterprise valuation) for Jio to US $146 billion (Rs 12.19 lakh crore) on the EBITDA upgrade and roll-over to Jun-27,' Jefferies said in a report. Jio also holds the highest number of patents on 6G. Jio Cloud , launched last year, offering 100GB free cloud storage, now has 35 million consumers, Thakur said during the call. On Monday, rival telecom operator Bharti Airtel 's shares ended 0.4% higher on the BSE at Rs 1,908.75, giving it a market cap of more than Rs 10.88 lakh crore.
Mint
3 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Unlicensed band radio: What it means and why it could be a low-cost fix for home broadband woes
Ever wondered how you manage to stream Netflix, attend Zoom calls, scroll through Instagram, and play online games—all at the same time? It's your home Wi-Fi working quietly in the background to keep everything running smoothly. Until now, internet has reached your home mainly through fibre-optic cables or the recently introduced fixed wireless access (FWA), which uses the 5G network. Now, Reliance Jio has introduced a new technology–unlicensed band radio (UBR)–to its backend systems to make home broadband 'faster and more efficient". Mint takes a look at Jio's new technology for home broadband, and whether it will benefit users, and impact other telecom companies. What is UBR tech? At the earnings call with analysts on 18 June, Reliance Jio said it is the first to deploy point-to-multipoint UBR technology for home broadband. The technology works like a radio station, sending internet wirelessly from a central antenna placed on a tower to multiple homes or buildings at the same time. This is called unlicensed as it uses free radio waves or open spectrum, such as the 5 GHz band that is allowed for licence-free use. Jio claims that this proprietary technology of the company has helped it accelerate the pace of monthly home connections to 1 million during the April-June quarter. The company said it has reached 20 million connected premises via home broadband using a combination of fibre, its AirFiber offerings and UBR. Why is Jio taking a different tack for home broadband? Jio is choosing a different route for home broadband because using only 5G and fibre has limits and is costly, it says. 5G networks are already busy with mobile users, and adding home broadband puts extra pressure on them, the company said. There's also limited 5G spectrum (radio space), which makes it hard to scale or customize services for home users. On the other hand, the fibre is prone to physical damage. 'Cost-wise, also, it (UBR) is more economical. Last-mile fibre is more expensive. So, in all those regards, it is going to be much more sustainable," said Anshuman Thakur, senior vice president at Jio Platforms, during the earnings call. According to Thakur, operators worldwide tried using the technology but did not succeed owing to less demand and therefore no scale. However, India is a fairly large market with over 300 million homes that will require broadband services, he said, adding that Jio's target of 100 million home connections seems much more doable. Since the reliance is on unlicensed spectrum, one of the biggest advantages for Jio would be to save on the spectrum usage charges (SUC). What does it mean for consumers? For users, UBR promises good fibre-like speeds of over 1 GB per second, without disruption in service due to cable cuts, according to Jio. It said unlike 5G network, the technology supports very high-end multicast applications. The telecom operator does not see any material difference on the consumer premise equipment (CPE) or boxes through which the internet enters homes or buildings. The device price will be similar to FWA, Jio's Thakur said, adding that the network equipment would be economical for the company. Analysts, however, said there could be some cost savings for the consumers on the CPE. 'This is a user-friendly technology. Currently, the cost of CPE used in FWA is high, but Wi-Fi routers are generally cheaper, and UBR uses those routers," said Satya N. Gupta, former principal advisor at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). According to Gupta, home broadband services over UBR would improve service quality and reduce costs. What does this mean for competition? Besides Jio, only Bharti Airtel is using both 5G FWA and fibre to connect homes with broadband. Airtel has not yet shared plans to use UBR technology for providing home broadband services. Analysts, however, said it depends on the operators' internal strategies in terms of what is driving maximum cost savings for them, and their spectrum deployment strategies, while ensuring service quality. 'This technology is largely seen as a way to save on costs for the companies," Gupta said, adding that even Airtel may implement the same going forward. 'Jio has scaled FWA well with 6.5 million subscribers and its ability to use Unlicensed spectrum (UBR) should support further FWA subscriber adds with limited impact on its mobile network," said brokerage house Jefferies in a note dated 18 July. Analysts at Jefferies expect Jio's mobile subscribers to reach 517 million and home broadband subscribers to reach 38 million by March 2027. What are the challenges? According to experts, there could be some technical challenges, such as interference and congestion issues, once it scales. 'We cannot control interference in the unlicensed band. This spectrum is going to be common for all, and if you are giving broadband connectivity…and someone or some service is interfering with the channel at that time where the transmission is taking place, the speeds can go down," said Parag Kar, an independent telecom analyst in a video analysis on YouTube. According to Kar, even as Jio will be able to double the capacity by using the Wi-Fi band but if the network gets loaded, the service quality will be affected. Therefore, risks such as maintaining quality of services over the long term, as it will be difficult to guarantee quality service owing to interference challenges, experts said.
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Business Standard
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Reliance Industries sheds over ₹70,000 crore in market cap post Q1 results
Reliance Industries (RIL) has erased over ₹70,000 crore in market capitalisation, as the stock price of the most valuable Indian firm slipped 3.6 per cent in Monday's intra-day trade in an otherwise stable market after reported weak earnings. RIL has announced its June quarter (Q1FY26) results on Friday post-market hours. RIL's market capitalisation has declined by ₹72,805 crore to ₹19.26 trillion on the BSE in intra-day trade. The company's market capitalisation stood at ₹19.99 crore on Friday, July 18. With Monday's decline, RIL has corrected 8 per cent from its current month high of ₹1,551 on July 7, 2025. The stock had hit a 52-week high of ₹1,589.50 on July 19, 2024. RIL's Q1FY26 consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) declined 2 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) (+11 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to ₹42,900 crore, due to weaker performance in Retail and oil-to-chemicals (O2C). The key positive in Reliance Jio was margin expansion along with 5G adoption progressing well with 210 million (versus 191 million in Q4) subscribers (42 per cent of the overall base) already migrated. The company continues to see 5G as a medium to long-term enabler of higher data usage and APRU driver along with its effort on home broadband, wherein it added 2.6 million subscribers in the quarter through acceleration of JioAirFiber. The company also has been leveraging UBR (Unlicensed band radio) to deploy fixed wireless access, which will bring scalability to the same. Total fixed subscriber base stood at 20 million, including 7.4 million from JioAirFiber. Key monitorable would be further tariff hike ahead, according to ICICI Securities. Meanwhile, Motilal Oswal Financial Services reduces its FY26-27 Ebitda by 1-2 per cent and profit after tax (PAT) by 4 per cent each due to broad-based earnings cuts. While Q1 was soft, the brokerage firm remains sanguine on RIL's growth prospects across segments. However, YES Securities recommend a BUY rating on RIL with a target price of ₹1,640 per share. Expectation of elevated capex levels due to the ongoing 5G rollout, planned petrochemical capacity expansion, and planned foray into renewable energy and acquisitions in retail. However, in the longer run, investments in petrochemical and renewable capacities, along with the 5G rollout, Retail growth, and New energy contribution have the potential to drive revenue growth, the brokerage firm said in a result update.
India Gazette
30-06-2025
- Business
- India Gazette
Reliance Jio set to become global leader in fixed wireless access as per subscriber base: ICICI Securities Report
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], June 30 (ANI): Reliance Jio (RJio) is on track to become the World's largest Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) service provider as per the number of subscribers by the end of June 2025, according to a report by ICICI Securities. The report is based on the latest subscriber data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for May 2025. The report stated, 'RJio on path to be dominant FWA player by subs globally'. It also noted that RJio's FWA subscriber base reached 5.9 million in May 2025. After adjusting for the UBR (Ultra Broadband Router) reclassification, the net additions stood at 0.74 million for the month. Including UBR subscribers, RJio's total FWA user base reached 6.88 million. This puts it ahead of T-Mobile, whose FWA subscriber count stood at 6.85 million as of March 2025. With this growth, RJio is poised to become the dominant FWA player globally by subscriber base. The report also highlighted that the overall industry saw an addition of 7.4 million active subscribers in May 2025. RJio led the growth, adding 5.5 million active subscribers, taking its total active base to 462 million. This comes after a period of stagnation following the tariff hikes in July 2024. RJio's total subscriber base rose by 2.7 million to 475 million in May. With this growth, RJio's active subscriber market share increased by 16 basis points (bps) month-on-month to 42.8 per cent. In comparison, Bharti Airtel's active market share declined by 13 bps to 35.8 per cent, and Vodafone Idea (VIL) saw a drop of 23 bps to 16 per cent. In terms of mobile broadband (MBB), excluding FWA, the report added that RJio's subscriber base grew by an average of 2.3 million per month between December 2024 and May 2025, reaching 475 million. When adjusted for inactive users, RJio's MBB market share stood at 50.8 per cent, up 20 bps compared to November 2024. Bharti's MBB market share also rose to 32 per cent, up 30 bps during the same period, while VIL's share dropped to 13.9 per cent, down 20 bps. The consistent growth in both active subscribers and FWA connections shows that RJio is becoming a major force in the global telecom landscape. (ANI)
Time of India
29-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
‘Reliance Jio may become dominant FWA provider by June-end, ahead of T-Mobile'
NEW DELHI: Reliance Jio is expected to become a dominant fixed wireless access (FWA) service provider by subscribers globally by the end of June, ahead of rival Bharti Airtel and US telecom carrier T-Mobile , according to ICICI Securities. The Mukesh Ambani-led telco gained 1.03 million 5G FWA customers in June, taking its total base to 5.85 million. By comparison, Airtel gained 182,458 customers, taking its user base to 1.54 million, according to the industry data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for May. The sector regulator has reclassified users of FWA-UBR (Fixed Wireless Access Unlicensed Band Radio) as fixed wireline customers. 'Industry FWA (excluding UBR) stood at 7.4 million with RJio's FWA subs at 5.9 million, and adjusted for UBR reclassification, net add was an impressive 0.74 million in May 2025. RJio's FWA (including UBR) stood at 6.88 million. This, compared to T-Mobile (US player, and had largest FWA subs base globally), FWA subs base was at 6.85 million in March 2025 (quarter),' the brokerage said in a research note on Sunday, which ETTelecom has reviewed. 'We believe RJio is path to become dominant player by subs for FWA globally by end-June 2025. Bharti's FWA subs rose 0.18 million to 1.5 million in May 2025; and Bharti is also scaling its FWA services to monetise the rising demand for fixed broadband in India,' it added. Jio and Airtel have seen a rapid uptake of their respective 5G fixed broadband services since the commercial launch in 2023. 5G FWA is also seen as a significant revenue-generation opportunity for the telcos, given the low penetration of wired broadband in India and a rise in data consumption. ICICI estimated that the wired broadband (including FWA) subsribers base rose at an average of 1.8 million per month over December 2024 to May 2025 to 51.5 million, representing a 24.6% year-on-year growth. 'Bharti's subs increase 0.29mn/month to 10.8mn. RJio added 0.66mn subs/month, now at 19.4mn. Other operators' subs base has been largely stable,' it said. According to ICICI, Jio's wired broadband (including FWA) market share rose to 37.6% in May 2025, compared to 34% in November 2024. During the same period, Airtel's share rose from about 20% to 21%, while state-controlled Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited's (BSNL) user base remained the same at 4.3 million but its market share fell from 10.3% in November 2024 to 8.4% in May 2025. Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson , in its recently released report, said that a strong need for accessible broadband in rural and semi-urban areas is driving Indian operators to expand their 5G FWA footprints. 'Availability of affordable 5G FWA customer premises equipment (CPE) is also driving growth of 5G FWA, which will help bridge the digital divide,' it has said. Jio widens gap with rivals in active user base In May, Jio's active subscribers expanded by 5.5 million to 462 million, whereas Airtel's active subscribers base increased 1.3 million to 387 million, while Vodafone Idea's active subscribers declined by 1.3 million to 173 million as its network expansion is yet to show a visible impact, as per ICICI. Jio's active user market share rose 16bps (basis points) month-on-month to 42.8%, while Airtel's declined 13bps to 35.8% and Vi's fell 23bps to 16%, it said. 1bps is 0.01%. Industry-wide active subscriber base was up by 7.4 million to 1.08 billion, following a 0.7% month-on-month growth in May.
