India must complete the migration from 2G to 4G and 5G at the earliest: RIL Chief

Time To Be Fibre-Ready

- India needs nationwide footprint of fibre

- To be future-ready, India has to be fibre-ready

- Affordability a critical driver of the expansion of mobile subscriber base

- India needs affordability not only of services, but also of devices and applications

- Suggests tapping USO fund to subsidise devices to select target groups

Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani in his keynote address at the inauguration of India Mobile Congress 2021, on Wednesday said, "India must complete the migration from 2G to 4G to 5G at the earliest." He added "to keep millions of Indians at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid confined to 2G is to deprive them of the benefits of the digital revolution."

"In a very short time, the Indian Mobile Congress has emerged as a prestigious platform for impact-making interaction among all the stakeholders in the industry. This is because of the visionary leadership provided by our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji. Because of our Prime Minister's vision and mission, India has seen a spectacular transformation of the mobile and digital landscape since 2014," Ambani said.

Mukesh Ambani's speech at the Mega Telecom Event is reproduced here.

India Mobile Congress 2021

This conference is taking place at a crucial juncture in India's post-Covid recovery. On one hand, India is making phenomenal progress in its Covid-19 vaccination campaign. And on the other hand, it is stepping up efforts to get the economy back on the high growth track. Our industry's contribution to the success of these two gigantic tasks has been pivotal. I am supremely confident that India will not only succeed in containing any future wave of Covid, but also stage a rapid economic comeback that will astonish the world.

My conviction is based on a good reason. India has fundamentally redefined its relationship with technology in the past few years - especially since the outbreak of the pandemic. Indians have embraced technology with unbridled optimism. During Covid, when the chips were down, it is the chipsets that kept us going.

When Covid-induced lockdowns rocked our boats, it is technology that kept our lives and livelihoods afloat. Work from Home, Study from Home, Pay from Home, Shop from Home...all this became common because of world-class digital technology infrastructure created by our industry.

The theme of this conference is 'connectivity for the next decade'. I would like to place before all of you five ideas related to this theme. My first idea is: India must complete the migration from 2G to 4G to 5G at the earliest. To keep millions of Indians at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid confined to 2G is to deprive them of the benefits of the digital revolution.

My second idea is: Roll-out of 5G should be India's national priority. At Jio, we are currently focused on 4G and 5G execution and broadband infrastructure expansion. We have developed a 100 per cent home-grown and comprehensive 5G solution which is fully cloud native and digitally managed.Because of our converged, future-proof architecture, Jio's network could be quickly and seamlessly upgraded from 4G to 5G.

My third idea is: We should not lose sight of the fact that affordability has been a critical driver of the phenomenally rapid expansion of the mobile subscriber base in India. India should move towards greater digital inclusion, and not greater digital exclusion. When we talk of affordability in the policy context, we only think of affordability of services. Actually, India needs to ensure affordability not only of services, but also of devices and applications. The best way of ensuring comprehensive affordability is nimble adoption of futuristic technologies and supportive policy tools like use of the USO fund for purposes other than services. USO fund can be used to subsidise devices to select target groups.

Ubiquitous Fibre Connectivity

My fourth idea is: Ubiquitous Fibre Connectivity should be completed across India on a mission mode. This is because the world is now transitioning into a digital first era, when almost everything will be done in the digital space first, and then translated into the physical world. The paradigm of economic activities and even social interactions will change dramatically. Virtual will become as important as real or Actual. Wealth creation will not only be accelerated, but will also become inclusive. Indeed, adoption of the FIRST strategy, coupled with our demographic strength, will enable India to outperform most other countries. This will necessitate increase in data carriage beyond anything we can now imagine. Fibre has almost unlimited data carriage capacity.

Therefore, to be future-ready, India has to be fibre-ready. Even during these Covid times, Jio was able to introduce Fibre to Home to 5 million homes. If all the players in the industry work together, we can rapidly achieve a nationwide footprint of Fibre, just as we reached mobile telephony to every corner of the country in the last decade. My fifth idea is: that, beyond connectivity, we should focus on the critical components of the digital eco-system which are necessary for India's digital transformation.

The Government is putting in place a sound regulatory and policy framework for this. This has helped thousands of young Indian entrepreneurs and start-ups create platforms, applications and solutions that can accelerate India's digital transformation. We are already seeing innovative solutions in Education, Financial Services, Entertainment, Retail, Agriculture, Manufacturing and other key verticals of the economy. The National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) under the visionary leadership of our Prime Minister is set to transform the landscape of healthcare in India.

Another candidate for radical transformation is India's energy systems. Technologies are maturing for energy saving through smart grids, decarbonisation of the economy, and drastic reduction in cost of India's transition to clean and green energy. All this shows that care for the people and care for the planet are embedded in the gigantic transformation our industry has initiated.

Democratizing Mobile and Digital revolution

Our industry can take legitimate pride in the fact that we have democratized the Mobile and Digital revolution in India. Now we are ready to democratize digitally enabled development, so that its fruits can be enjoyed by all the 1.35 billion Indians. We are determined to transform India as a premier Digital Society, with the ease of living and the ease of doing business, which are comparable to advanced countries in the world.

I end my remarks by pledging that we stand fully committed to realizing this mission and mandate of our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji. Thank you and a very warm good morning to each and everyone of you.