Intel has announced a partnership with Reliance Jio to develop 5G networking technology. The company has said that it will work on “co-innovations” with Reliance Jio for its 5G radio-access network (RAN), among other things.
Reliance Jio is one of the many telecom service providers across the globe to not be taking the conventional approach of getting 5G technologies from firms like Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei. Instead, it is building its own 5G network.
“This is the fruit of that partnership,” Navin Shenoy, executive vice president and general manager of the data platforms group at Intel, told Reuters in an interview. “5G in India is going to be massive, and (Reliance Jio) are doing it in a non-legacy way.”
To recall, Intel’s venture capital unit last year invested $250 million in Reliance Industries’ Jio platforms. It had stated that the investment is for the two companies to work together to find areas of technology partnership.
Intel‘s networking chips business grew 20 percent in 2020. This according to the company’s general manager of network platforms, Dan Rodriguez, has happened due to the company developing an operating system for its network chips, called FlexRAN. FlexRAN basically allows carriers or software firms to write code for 5G networks.
FlexRAN along with software from Cohere Technologies could help carriers double the utilization of some network spectrum using Intel’s chips according to the company. This will benefit carriers including Reliance Jio who are acquiring expensive spectrum rights from their governments.
To recall, Reliance Jio has announced that it would be developing and deploying its own 5G networks in the country, Bharti Airtel recently partnered with Qualcomm and TCS to develop its own 5G networks. Apart from these, Vi and MTNL have also got the go-ahead from the government to test their 5G networks in the country.
