Reliance AGM 2022 recap: The biggest announcements, including 5G rollout Diwali

During the 45th annual general meeting on Monday, Reliance Industries (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani announced a series of high-profile announcements, including the company’s plans to roll out 5G services in the world’s second-most popular country within the next two months. Other big announcements include the AirFiber service which will offer ultra-high fibre-like speed over the air without any wires at homes and offices. We also got a confirmation about Jio launching 5G smartphones in partnership with Google.
Below we’ll walk through what was announced, from Jio 5G rollout to Jio Cloud PC. 

Jio to kick start 5G service in October
Jio, which happens to be India’s top telecom operator, said it is committed to spending $25 billion to launch 5G services in key cities of India this Diwali October. The company, which has over 420 million subscribers, will extend 5G services to every part of India the end of 2023. Reliance recently acquired spectrum in the 700MHz, 800MHz, 1800MHz, 3300MHz and 26GHz bands for 20 years at a cost of Rs 88.0078 crore in India’s first 5G spectrum auction. India aims to begin 5G services October this year. 

AirFiber
The company also unveiled the AirFiber, a wireless plug-and-play 5G hotspot that doesn’t require fiber cables. The single device solution offers a personal Wi-Fi hotspot at home or offices, which is connected to ultra-high-speed Jio True 5G internet.
“Jio has developed a JioAirFiber Home Gateway, which is a wireless, simple, single-device solution to have a Wi-Fi hotspot in a home, connected to ultra-high-speed internet using true 5G,” Ambani said.
“With single device JioAirFiber, it will be easy to quickly connect any home or office to Gigabit-speed Internet. With the simplicity of JioAirFiber, hundreds of millions of homes and offices can be connected to ultra-high-speed broadband in a very short period. With it, India can rank among the top 10 nations, even for fixed broadband.”
Jio Cloud PC
Jio has also launched a new JioCloud PC, which is a small, Mac Mini-like device with a “pay for what you use” model. It is essentially a virtual PC with no upfront investments or upgrades. “With no upfront investment or tension of periodical upgrading, a user needs to pay only to the extent used, resulting in a super-affordable way to bring the power of a PC, even multiple PCs, to every Indian home and business,” the company said.
Partnerships with Big Tech
Reliance said it is working with Meta, Google, Microsoft, Intel and Qualcomm to broaden their joint collaborations. With Google, the company is developing 5G-enabled ultra-affordable smartphones for the mass market. With Meta, Jio is working to develop immersive technology and metaverse and with Qualcomm, the company said the latter mobile chip titan is developing 5G solutions for the Indian market.