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Reliance Jio to Bring 5G services to Every Indian by December 2023

The largest telecom company in the country, Reliance Jio, has said that by December 2023, it will offer ultra-high-speed internet connectivity to the whole of India. Recently, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani stated that while India may have delayed in introducing 5G services, it will lead the way by spreading out the 5G service nationwide. At the India Mobile Congress (IMC) meeting, he stated:

5G service
Image Source: communicationstoday.co.in

“Today, I want to reiterate Jio’s commitment to deliver 5G to every town, every taluka, and every tehsil of our country by December 2023.”

At the annual shareholder meeting of his company, Reliance Industries Ltd., Ambani stated that by Diwali, 5G services would be available in Delhi, Bombay, Kolkata, and Chennai. He added that since the majority of Jio’s 5G was built in India, it bears the seal of “Atmanirbhar Bharat,” and that 5G and 5G networks’ digital solutions can make access to high-quality, reasonably priced skills and education development possible for ordinary India

He stated that 5G can deliver high-quality healthcare to rural and isolated places by transforming current healthcare facilities into smart hospitals without requiring a large additional investment. It will make the best doctors’ services digitally accessible anywhere in India, enhancing the speed and accuracy of diagnostics, and enabling real-time clinical decision-making.

By increasing the digitization and smart data management of the agriculture, industry, trade, informal, services sector, transport, and power infrastructure, he claimed that 5G can also close the gap between rural and urban India.

Speaking at the event, Ambani asserted that by leveraging demographic trends and digital technologies, India can become the top digital society in the world, fulfilling the twin objectives of speeding growth and promoting inclusive development. Through this by 2047, India’s GDP would grow to $40 trillion from its current $3 trillion value, and its per capita income would rise quickly to over $20,000 from its current $2,000 value.

Ambani also that 5G is far more than simply the next level of communication technology. 5G offers foundational tech that opens the maximum potential of other revolutionary technologies including artificial intelligence, the IoT, robotics, cryptocurrency, and the metaverse.

On October 1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally introduced 5G services in India during the 6th India Mobile Congress at Delhi’s Pragati Maidan. Fast-speed internet connectivity with low delay is projected to be offered through 5G services, altering the existing data landscape.

5G services will provide high data rates, low latency, and a very reliable communications infrastructure. 5G services will improve energy, spectrum, and network efficiency. Millions of IoT devices will be connected with the help of 5G technology, which will also enable the delivery of vital services and higher-quality mobile video services.

Precision agriculture, real-time disaster monitoring, and reducing human involvement in risky industrial activities like deep mining and offshore work will be made possible by 5G.

To build out its network, Jio is expending over Rs 2 trillion. In the most recent auction, Jio purchased 24,740 MHz of spectrum in a number of bands. In the 5G spectrum auction, Reliance Industries’ Jio came out on top as the biggest spender, securing frequencies worth $11 billion to expand its wireless network throughout the world’s second-largest mobile market i.e India.

Reliance Jio entered the telecom market in September 2016 by giving out free calls and incredibly inexpensive data, compelling the competitors to either catch up or go out of business. With more than 42.62 crore customers, Reliance Jio is the largest network mobile network in India and the world’s third biggest network operator.

5G spectrum

5G spectrum Auction Begins: These 13 Cities Will Get 5G Services First In India.

The auctions for the deployment of the 5G spectrum has initiated in India for a nationwide 5G roll-out. They are supposed to be concluded over the next few days and hopefully by the month-end. A spectrum with a 20-year time frame with a validity of over 72 GHz is up for auction. The spectrum auction includes spectrum in several frequency bands having both low (600 GHz, 700 GHz, 800 GHz, 900 GHz, 1800 GHz, 2100 GHz, and 2300 GHz) and high (26 GHz).

There have been claims about the speed of 5G by the government that it will be about ten times faster than the 4G we’re currently using. It will bring an enormous change to the telecommunication industry. Now, after speculation by DOT (Department of Telecommunication), the 5G service will be established in India in 2020 as you know, the auctions have already started.

It is also claimed by the department of telecommunications that the 13 cities all over the country will get the chance to establish 5G at first. Then it will slowly expand over the other parts of the country as there are many parts of the country where there are places with no 4G connectivity and last week Jio established 4G connectivity in a town named Pangong Lake in the Ladakh region. The cities that will get the 5G are Delhi, Gurugram, Gandhinagar, Mumbai, Pune, Jamnagar, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Chennai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad.

5G spectrum
Image source: hindustantimes.com

Currently, there is no information about the telecom operator corporation, which will be the first to commercially and successfully deploy this 5G spectrum services in India. The leading telecom operator firms such as Airtel, Jio, and Vi (Vodafone and Idea) have already initiated setting up their trial sites in mentioned cities.

The Department of Telecommunication has collaborated with eight agencies that are IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IISC Bangalore, Society for Applied Microwave Electronica & Engineering, and Center of Excellence in Wireless Technology, for the national 5G test bed project initiated in 2018.

The Department anticipated a price range of 70,000 crores to 1,00,000 crores from the 5G spectrum auctions that would usher in great new age offerings and innovative business models which would enable high-speed connections, and generate high revenue for various enterprises, and provide employment emerging from the allocation of innovative use-cases and technologies. The biddings are expected to last for about two days. The 72 GHz will be worth 4.3 lakh crore INR.

It is also anticipated that Mukesh Ambani’s Jio will be leading the expense, followed by Bharti, and Airtel while there is meager participation seen from Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Adani Group. Reliance Jio has an Earnest Money Deposit of 14,000 crores, while its competitor Adani Group has made a minor deposit of 100 crore INR. There would be less chance of aggressive bidding as there are only four participants in the race. While Reliance Jio may be intensely bidding in the auctions, there is not any major bidding by Adani Group.

The government is searching for various measures to cut off the expense of performing business for Telecommunication Service Provider firms. It announced reforms in the telecom sector in September 2021, which will serve as a huge benefit for this spectrum auction. The reform comprises zero Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) on the spectrum that will be purchased in the coming auctions. The telecom Service providers will be receiving a significant relief from SUC being the cause as it will reduce their operational costs for them. It will be seen as an immense revolution in the telecom industry, providing many opportunities for providers and consumers.

Vocus Group

Vocus Group – Operating a 30,000 km Fibre-Optic Network Specifically For Government And Business.

Vocus Group is a top provider of specialised network and fibre solutions. The company was formerly known as Vocus Communications. Vocus Group owns and operates a 30,000 km fibre-optic network that is maintained and designed specifically for government and business. The company provides straightforward and reasonably priced broadband and internet services through their well-known retail brands.

About The Company

Vocus Group was established in 2008 as a wholesale, commercial, government, and customer telecommunications service provider. The company is the second-largest provider of inter-capital fibre network in Australia. It directly offers various network services like Internet, IP WAN, dark fibre, telephony, unified communications, and cloud solutions to small, large, and corporate firms. The company also supplies its services wholesale. In addition to having an onshore networking operations centre staffed by the engineers who created the network, Vocus Group owns and runs 18 data centres in Australia and New Zealand.

Vocus Group
Image Source: campaignbrief.com

History Of The Company

Entrepreneur James Spenceley established Vocus in March 2008. In 2015, Vocus Group bought Perth-based Amcom. Vocus declared profits of AU$62.25M before its merger with M2 Group on February 22, 2016, for a combined value of AU$3.75 billion. With 471,000 subscribers, this merging made Vocus Group Australia’s fourth-largest telecoms company. To improve board independence, M2 Group’s founding MD and CEO Vaughan Bowen resigned from his position as non-executive chairman of the Vocus Board in March 2018. Robert Mansfield AO, a former Telstra chairman and the first CEO of Optus, was appointed to take his place. From 28 May 2018 until Kevin Russell was appointed CEO, Michael Simmons served as Interim CEO. In October 2016, the company paid $861 million to purchase Nextgen Networks. This gives Vocus access to the infrastructure and backhaul of the National Broadband Network in Northern Australia, which serves offshore gas projects. In 2021, a consortium of MIRA and Aware Super acquired Vocus.

Vocus Group’s Acquisitions

Vocus has acquired several businesses to diversify its products and service portfolio. Vocus paid $11.7 million to ASG Group in 2014 for its data centre. For $11.7 million, it also purchased the Bentley data centre from IT service company ASG in 2014. The same year, it bought New Zealand-based FX Networks, a provider of fiber services to many of the country’s largest businesses, including numerous government organizations, telecom carriers, ISPs, and companies. [25] For $23.5 million, it purchased Enterprise Data Corporation, which included two data centres in Sydney and Melbourne. Vocus increased its stake in Western Australia in 2015 by buying a 10% interest in Telecom NZ’s SEA-ME-WE 3 Cable.

CEO – Kevin Steven

Kevin Steven Russel serves as the CEO, Executive Director, and Group Managing Director of Vocus Group. He has international expertise and has worked in the telecoms sector for more than 20 years in Australia, the UK, the United States, and Israel. He has proven through time that he has the leadership skills necessary to drive change and enhance corporate performance. He is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Scotland and possesses a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting and Computer Science from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Founder – James Spenceley

James Spenceley founded Vocus Communications, which is now known as Vocus Group. After increasing its yearly sales to $67 million in 2013, Spenceley ranked 81st on the BRW’s Young Rich list. After Vocus merged with Perth-based Amcom, he became one of the youngest Aussies in history to lead a business valued at over $1 billion. In addition to being inducted into the Telecommunications Industry Hall of Fame in 2018, he has twice been recognized for his entrepreneurial accomplishments by taking home the Ernst and Young Australian Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

vonage

Vonage – 25 Years Old Company Specializes In Business Cloud Communications.

The discovery of communication mediums, like the telephone, has revolutionized every industry. In fact, communication mediums are the best invention of all time. Starting from telegraphs to telephones, and from the simple button, mobile phones to today’s smartphones, all of these devices have been a matter of amaze. Today, we are able to communicate not only via smartphones but also through a mere internet connection. On the internet, too, cloud communication has become a really effective medium of communication. Vonage is one of those cloud communication service providers which provides its services to businesses. This American company started as a residential telecommunication service provider and today is one of the leading business cloud communications providers.

About Vonage

Vonage is a publically held American company founded in 1998. It specializes in business cloud communications, such that, provides services like Unified Communications, Contact Center, Communications APIs, Home VoIP Phone Service Provider, etc. The company is about 25 years old, but still, it retains its relevance, in fact, with time, it has adapted to the changing trends, making it stand strong among the competition. Jeff Pulver and Jeffrey A. Citron are the founders of Vonage, whereas its headquarters is based in Holmdel, New Jersey, United States. The company offers its services worldwide, and about 2500 people are working for it. As per the 2020 records, Vonage made revenues worth $1.25 billion, and its served over 1.1 million subscribers worldwide.

vonage
Image source: techstory.in

The Back Story

Jeff Pulver founded Vonage in 1998 as Min-X.com, a Voice over IP (VOIP) exchange. Later, Jeffrey A. Citron, the other co-founder, and Carlos Bhola, an investor in the company, joined Vonage. Both contributed $1 million from their private savings and became board members. In the coming years, Citron became the CEO, whereas Bhola was appointed as the President of the company, raising $11 million in additional funding. By this time, the company started to focus on being a VOIP service provider. In 2001, the company had its name changed to Vonage Holdings Corp., and the headquarters of the company was shifted to Holmdel, New Jersey.

Beginning in the USA, Vonage had expanded to countries like the UK and Canada in the coming years. In 2006, the company went public on New York Stock Exchange, and it offered its shares to its existing customers through the IPO.
Like every other company, Vonage started to expand its business through strategic acquisitions, starting in 2013. The names acquired by Vonage include Vocalocity, Telesphere, iCore Networks, SimpleSignal, gUnify, Nexmo, TokBox, NewVoiceMedia, Over.ai, etc.

Today, Vonage specializes in services including Business services (unified communications, cloud communications, middleware technology, etc.), Residential services (home phone plans using VoIP), Service requirements, telephone number availability, Emergency calls, Quality of service, and equipment compatibility, etc. As per an announcement by Ericsson done in November 2021, Ericson is going to acquire Vonage for a sum of 6.2 billion USD by the first half of 2022.

The CEO at Vonage

Rory P. Read is the current CEO of Vonage. He is a well-known business executive in America and possesses experience of more than 25 years. Read has got a bachelor’s degree in information systems from Hartwick College and has worked in big-name companies like IM, Lenovo, AMD as well as Dell in multiple executive positions. In fact, Read has spent about 23 years at IPB, where he handled the Asia Pacific region as the general manager, of Business Innovation Services. Before joining Vonage, Read served as the president and CEO of Virtustream, a subsidiary of Dell, and as the EVP chief operating executive of Dell. Read became the CEO of Vonage in July 2020.

Dubber Corporation

Dubber Corporation – All Three Co-Founders Came Up With The Idea While Working In Call Center.

Dubber Corporation was founded in 2011 by three friends. It is a publicly-traded company with its headquarters based in Melbourne, Australia. Dubber offers cloud-based solutions mainly called recording software across various industries. Various types of products are developed by the company not only for various industries but also for the government.

It has a customized range of solutions for large as well as small and medium enterprises. Four main sectors where Dubber is a leading provider of recording software are healthcare, education, financial services, and legal department. The solutions provided by the company are also divided into four categories, namely, compliance intelligence, revenue intelligence, people intelligence, and customer intelligence.

About Dubber Corporation

The founders of Dubber Corporation are James Slaney, Steve McGovern, and Adrian Di Piantrantonio. Dubber predominantly sells its products to Telecommunications Service Providers and Enterprise customers. It is one of the world’s leading companies for unified call recording solutions and voice intelligence clouds. Dubber has a SaaS model for selling its cloud-based software and it is incorporated in many networks communication solutions globally. Dubber has formed only a decade ago and today more than 150 service providers are using its software for call recording and many other purposes.

The company has also crossed the mark of recording more than one billion minutes successfully. Some of the biggest clients of Dubber are Verizon, AT&T, Microsoft Teams, Cox, Zoom, Vodafone, etc. Dubber Corporation has five fundamental values to establish an open and inclusive culture and grow in a strong way. They are to
challenge the status quo, leading together to create more opportunities, a champion service provider for the customers, drive extraordinary performance, and grow as a curious group of people.

Dubber Corporation
Image source: ctfassets.net

Idea Behind Dubber

Founded in 2011, the three co-founders came up with the idea of Dubber Corporation over a few glasses of wine. These three friends were already working in the telecommunication sector and hence had better knowledge than inexperienced entrepreneurs. Before co-founding Dubber, all three of them were working with an Australian Service Provider whose main job was to all the in-bound call center traffic for ACCC (an Australian regulator). This was when the trio realized that though it is very inexpensive to record conversations, it is equally a very laborious job to retrieve the data. So, to bridge this technology gap in the telecommunication sector and make it simpler, they grabbed the opportunity at the earliest and started developing a whole new platform. They made the entire platform cloud-native and scalable for the entire globe. This is how Dubber Corporation was formed. All three co-founders are still a very integrated part of the group. James Slaney is the COO, Steve McGovern is the CEO, and Adrian Di Piantrantonio is the EVP, Global Channels of Dubber.

Growth of the Company

Dubber successfully raised $6 million in angel investment in 2013. After a couple of years, it went public and got listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. In the same year, Dubber successfully made it through a series of interoperability tests with BroadSoft’s unified communications software. During this time, Dubber witnessed a very high growth of 141% in terms of the number of users for the first half of the year. In 2016, Dubber established a partnership with Cisco Broadsoft and in the following years’ established partnerships with many other tech giants. It has also made a few acquisitions including CallN, an Australian call recording company, and Speik, a UK-based company.

Steve McGovern – CEO of Dubber Corporation

Steve McGovern is the current CEO of the company and before that worked at the Hotkey Internet Services Pty Ltd as the General Manager and was the Director of Sales at Sky TV. He completed his education at the University of Sheffield. Currently, he is also a board member of Dubber Corporation and Linius Technologies Ltd. McGovern, after co-founding Dubber, served as the Chairman of Firestrike Resources Ltd but for a very short time.

Sprint Corporation

Sprint Corporation – An American Telecommunication Company With its Root Back in the 19th Century.

Sprint Corporation, in the past 122 years, has taken up various names and went through multiple mergers and acquisitions. Originally founded by Cleyson Brown and Jacob Brown, Sprint Corporation is currently a part of T-Mobile US as a result of the merger that took place in April 2020. The history of Sprint Corporation is related to two other companies, namely, Brown Telephone Company and Southern Pacific Railroad from where it originated. The main services of the company are mobile telephony, wireless communication, internet services, and broadband. The headquarters of the company is based in Kansas, US. After the merger of Sprint with T-Mobile US last year, Sprint has become a subsidiary of T-Mobile and the brand name has also been phased out.

The Parent Companies

In 1899, the Brown Telephone Company was established by Clayson Brown. The company was established to avail of telephone services for the first time in rural Kansas. In 1900, the Brown Telephone Company rolled out its first long-distance circuit and grew popular in no time. It gave a strong competition to Bell Telephone Company which was the most famous operator in those days. In 1911, Brown merged the company with other independent entities to form the United Telephone Company. The name of the company changed to United Utilities followed by United Communications in 1972.

The second parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad, was founded in the 1860s as a subsidiary of Southern Pacific Company (SPC). SPC formed a new division in the 1970s to leverage the power of existing communication technology for long-distance calling. This division was named Southern Pacific Communication Company. With the expanding business of SPC, it gave strong competition to AT&T and a strong rivalry existed between them. In the mid-1970s, SPC decided to change its name to SPRINT which is the acronym for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony.

Sprint Corporation
Image source: moneyinc.com

Sprint Corporation in the 20th Century

In 1983, a company called GTE Group acquired SPRINT and the long-distance telephony of SPC. After three years, a merger took place between the GTE Group and United Telecommunications Inc. property, US Telecom which named the new company as US Sprint Communications. After a few years, United Telecom gained full control of the US Sprint and officially renamed the company Sprint Corporation. The next decade was followed by Sprint entering the Canadian market and forming an alliance with Call-Net Enterprises. In 1995, it established a new partnership with American Personal Communications for creating digital wireless networks. Sprint struck deals with another company called RadioShack for communication services and products across the US market.

Present Days

In 2004, a massive merger took place between the Sprint Corporation and Nextel Communications. The new company was known as Sprint Nextel Corporation. When this merger took place, both the companies were two of the leading telecommunication companies in the US. In the next few years, Sprint Nextel acquired a series of companies including US Unwired, IWO Holdings, Gulf Coast Wireless, Alamosa Holdings, Enterprise Communications, and many more. This continuous series of acquisitions of both affiliates and non-affiliates took place till 2009.

After the merger, the company had two headquarters, one in Virgian and the other one in Kansas. Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint realized that it sent the wrong message to the public and hence made a single headquarters of the company in Kansas. In 2012, a renowned Japanese telecommunications company, SoftBank showed interest in buying a 70 percent stake at Sprint Nextel for $20.1 billion. The acquisition was completed after a year when the US Federal Communications Commission approved it. Last year, the company was acquired by T-Mobile US and the brand name of Sprint ceased to exist.

Founders of Sprint Corporation

Cleyson Brown is the main founder of the Brown Telephone Company which eventually became Sprint Corporation and is now a part of T-Mobile US. Jacob Brown, brother of Cleyson Brown helped him to found the Brown Telephone Company. Cleyson Brown is mainly famous for founding the Brown Telephone Company but he was also a famous innovator and a philanthropist. Before founding the telephone company, he established Abilene Electric Light Works for generating electricity.