Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio), India’s newest mobile provider, has begun preparing for the transition to 5G, announcing plans to increase the number of small cells in its network and selecting Cisco to further expand its all-IP converged network. Jio confirmed that it had installed 100,000 Airspan small cells in its LTE network last year, and plans to increase that figure to 150,000. The Economic Times quotes the company’s president, Mathew Ooman as saying that the deployment allows the cellco to ‘proactively and rapidly’ address demand through targeted deployments. A joint statement from Airspan and Jio notes: ‘The two companies have partnered through an extensive design, development, integration, and deployment cycle in record time to create a cost efficient indoor capacity tool for use today. The design provides a strong path towards 5G with the same tools and building blocks, allowing a further quantum leap in capacity.’
In a separate development, Cisco will continue to build on Jio’s network which the vendor describes as ‘5G-ready’. The all-IP network is built on Cisco’s Open Network Architecture and Cloud Scale Networking technologies, featuring IP/MPLS, spanning areas including Data Centre, Wi-Fi, Security and Contact Centre solutions, the vendor stated in a press release today, adding: ‘Cisco is building the simplified, automated and virtualised network platform of the future based on industry-leading software, systems, silicon and services. This enables service providers, media and web companies worldwide to reduce costs, speed time-to-market, secure their networks and sustain profitable growth.’