Independent research and development? The conspiracy behind India's "three no's" 5G

In the past few years, every July 15th, India would have major events as a "tribute" to Independence Day (August 15th) a month in advance: the Asian Games flame was lit, the launch date of "Chandrayaan-2" was determined... On July 15th this year, there was another big move in the routine tribute program - India's richest man Mukesh Ambani announced at the annual shareholders' meeting that he had found a self-developed 5G technology solution and decided to officially implement it in 2021, which caused a stir in the industry.

Ambani's total wealth has surpassed Jack Ma in the past year and he is currently the richest man in Asia. He is the chairman of India's Reliance Industries Limited Group. Jio is an important subsidiary of Reliance Industries, focusing on telecommunications operations and mobile e-commerce platform businesses.

In my opinion, the reason why Ambani's seemingly extremely important announcement only "created a ripple" in the industry but failed to create huge waves is, on the one hand, because the relevant reports in the major communications technology sectors in Europe and the United States did handle it in a very low-key manner, and on the other hand, this nearly two-hour shareholders' meeting specifically mentioned 5G for less than 15 minutes in total. In general, Ambani and Jio's department heads gave people the feeling that they were exaggerating a beautiful story, but did not mention the issue of the path of independent research and development of 5G technology.

Screenshot of Ambani's live speech

In any case, Ambani's 5G rhetoric was spread to the world along with a PPT page with white text on a blue background. On this widely circulated page, the first sentence is "Jio has created a complete 5G solution from scratch", which means that Jio has created a complete 5G solution from scratch.

There are two key words in this sentence. One is scratch, which means to build a tall building from scratch and conduct independent research and development; the other is solution. However, this confusing solution is still just a "mystery" to industry experts.

Two major difficulties faced by Jio Telecom in 5G research and development

Jio Telecom only obtained the Indian commercial telecommunications operator's license in 2016. Compared with its two major competitors, Airtel and Vodafone Idea, they bypassed the 2G and 3G construction and directly cooperated with Qualcomm to develop ultra-low-cost 4G Android phones. They gradually gained a firm foothold in the market and became the only telecommunications operator in India that can generate stable profits.

Do they have some shortcuts that can help them achieve the same results as Huawei, Ericsson and other global leading equipment suppliers who have spent years on 5G in a short period of time? Let’s assume that Jio’s independent 5G research and development is not a rash undertaking. If so, they will have to overcome at least two major obstacles.

First, India has been announcing the 5G spectrum auction since 2018, but there is still no progress. There are only a rough auction rule and a vague auction date of 2021. Without enough spectrum resources, even if the 5G logo is displayed on the user's phone, in fact, only 4G experience can be obtained, and 5G services cannot take root.

Although the time is not set, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has set a firm price. According to a report by Indian media "Business Today" in March this year, the Indian government regards spectrum auctions as a way to supplement treasury funds, and in the game with the three major operators, the basic price of 5G frequency bands is set at US$64.9 million per MHz. In the same field, Italy is US$26 million, South Korea is US$18 million, the United Kingdom and Australia are US$10 million and US$5 million respectively. Such a spectrum auction price that exceeds many developed countries has made Airtel and Vodafone Idea threaten to withdraw from the auction agenda. Although Jio Telecom's revenue situation is relatively good and it has just completed several important rounds of financing, it still has to endure the unspeakable pain of cutting flesh.

Many domestic and foreign technology media have already noticed the above point, but they still missed an important point, which I need to add here. That is, for Jio, which is currently committed to developing 5G, the urgency of renewing the 4G spectrum is greater than 5G. Because many services of Jio's "golden" frequency band - 800MHz spectrum 4G mobile license will expire in June 2021. If it is not renewed, Jio, which is far behind Vodafone Idea in terms of user numbers and ARPU (the profit obtained by operators from each user in a period of time), will completely be at the bottom of the telecom operation, and even become a spectator in the 4G field.

A few months ago, Google, Qualcomm, and Intel invested in Jio. After reviewing the cooperation memorandums of understanding between the parties, I found that 4G construction is the top priority. These social platforms and hardware suppliers may not be completely dismissive of Jio's 5G, but if they lose the 4G base and hand it over to competitors Airtel and Vodafone Idea, Jio will definitely not tolerate it.

Secondly, if spectrum resources are a relatively invisible issue that is relatively easy to obscure, then patent barriers are an obvious problem facing Jio Telecom.

On the video platform where Reliance Industries' shareholders' meeting was broadcast live, many Indian netizens immediately expressed doubts: How many 5G patents does Jio have? How much toll will Huawei take?

Huawei holds 19% of the 5G key core patents owned by various companies (telecoms.com)

In the field of 5G patents, Huawei is indeed a giant, with one out of every five 5G patents belonging to Huawei, especially in the number of core essential patents (SEPs), which is ahead of other industry competitors. The number of patents cannot be concealed, and major Indian media have to mention Jio and sweat, believing that they "face severe challenges" in 5G research and development.

The reality is cruel. According to a report by The Times of India two days ago, Jio has applied for a total of 134 5G patents since 2016, and 29 of them have been approved, which is really shabby. In this regard, The Times of India also sent an email to Jio headquarters specifically on this issue to ask them how to circumvent the 5G patent barriers, but Jio did not respond.

On social media, Indian netizens are also questioning the possibility of Jio developing 5G. Jio copied Zoom during the epidemic, and its "independently developed" remote conferencing system was widely criticized by Indian netizens.

Relying on Open RAN? Rent a "booth" first

Where does Jio's confidence in developing 5G come from? Based on the speculations of the industry's "Sherlock Holmes", the thigh that Jio can hold on to is likely to be Open RAN, a cloud-based reform plan of equipment suppliers that can partially realize 5G functions. Of course, whether this plan is the "solution" mentioned by Ambani is still in doubt for the time being, because the relevant parties have not made a clear statement so far.

As mentioned above, Jio was absent from 2G and 3G, and entered the market directly from 4G, relying on the all-IP 4G network architecture, which is a cloud-native system (Cloud Native), a pure software system, which may have stimulated Jio's ambition to transition from 4G to 5G by relying on a pure software platform. This Open RAN technology can expand the ability to simulate hardware platforms in software through software and hardware decoupling and open interfaces, which poses a certain degree of challenge to the traditional operation mode of telecom equipment software and hardware integration and highly integrated interfaces.

Two months ago, Japan's Rakuten announced that it could further expand its 4G operating services into 5G services through Open RAN, which may have given Jio a lot of inspiration. In addition, as early as 2018, Jio acquired Radisys in the United States, and its end-to-end virtualization and open source capabilities have been improved to a certain extent.

List of some members of the Open RAN Alliance

However, building an Open RAN network capable of 5G functions also requires key virtualized distribution, centralization and radio frequency units. Jio, which is "poor and blank" in this area, is very likely to cooperate with Samsung.

Even if the above points are fully achieved, Open RAN still cannot do without the most basic hardware support. For example, a virtual CD-ROM drive can replace a hardware CD-ROM drive, but the virtual CD-ROM drive software needs to run in an environment with hardware device support, just like a person cannot lift his head off the ground. Japan's Rakuten has announced support for multiple-input and multiple-output MIMO systems, using multiple antennas at both the transmitting and receiving ends. In other words, suppliers are still required to set up enough antennas. Therefore, Open RAN is essentially still inseparable from vendors (equipment suppliers).

From this point of view, if Jio adopts the Open RAN application model, then what it does is basically providing a display booth, working closely with cloud system integration and virtualized network software suppliers and some third parties (or even fourth parties) that can provide wireless equipment to procure, assemble, test, and put them on the road under a brand name. This can only be said to be an extremely reluctant way of independent research and development.

Another way besides 5G

Jio Telecom first announced its independent 5G development at the end of February this year, when the COVID-19 pandemic had not yet spread across North America and South Asia. Trump’s visit to India sparked suspicions about whether this move was intended to target a third party. During his visit to India, Trump personally met with Ambani, president of Reliance Industries. The local Indian media Business Today even simulated the conversation between the two: