As 5G monetization remains sluggish, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd will plan a wider rollout of 5G premium services through network slicing based on demand from users, their willingness to pay, and the much-awaited regulatory clarity.
While the telecom operator noted that its network is technically ready to support direct-to-consumer premium 5G services for specialized use cases like gaming and for enterprise offerings, it clarified that it is currently not looking to introduce network slicing for everyday mobility voice or data services.
"The 5G premium services with our SA (standalone architecture) stack that we are able to offer, some of this is being done on a trial basis. We need to ensure that we are fully regulatory compliant, but these products are ready for the market,” said Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy at Reliance Jio, during the March-quarter earnings call on Friday.
On offering differentiated 5G for everyday voice or data services, Thakur said the company’s network supports the same, "but whether consumers need something like that, whether the consumers pay a premium for that, and whether that would be regulatory compliant. I think those are the things that we'll need to work through”.
Regulatory grey zone
Network slicing refers to the creation of multiple virtual networks on a single physical 5G network, much like slicing a pizza into different pieces, each tailored to support specific services with distinct performance levels, such as speed, latency, security and reliability.
Telecom operators can offer each slice to mobile users as premium plans with faster speeds, lower latency, or priority connectivity for specific use cases such as gaming or streaming. For enterprises, they can provide higher speed, lower latency and more reliable connections for critical operations.
To be sure, Jio has currently built 5G network slices for gaming, internet of things (IoT), enterprise, and mission-critical services.
In India, where network slicing is still at a nascent stage, regulatory clarity on such differentiated services is yet to emerge. The same assumes significance as 5G has a limited monetization potential, and currently, only fixed wireless access (FWA), which is high-speed 5G broadband, has largely been a monetization opportunity.
Globally, in countries like the US, operators are using network slicing capabilities to maximize returns on their 5G investments. In India, however, operators are calling on the telecom regulator and the government to recognize network slicing as a legitimate innovation, allowing it to coexist with existing net neutrality obligations.
Net neutrality requires that all internet traffic be treated equally, preventing operators from blocking, slowing down, or prioritizing any content or application, and ensuring a level playing field for users.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in February that it was examining the issue.
“Any attempt to offer SLA (service-level agreement)-based premium mobile services using 5G slicing will inevitably come at the cost of basic users sharing the same network capacity," said Parag Kar, an independent telecom analyst.
“This risk is particularly acute in low-frequency bands like 700 MHz, which are critical for indoor coverage but have limited spectrum, for instance, only about 10 MHz in the case of Reliance Jio."
According to Kar, prioritizing premium traffic in such constrained bands can degrade the experience of regular users. This would be inconsistent with licensing conditions, which explicitly require that specialized services must not compromise the availability or overall quality of general internet access, he said.
Pressing need
For Jio, an increase in return on investment and higher average revenue per user(Arpu) is crucial as it is in the process of filing its draft papers for a public listing. The company had earlier guided to list on bourses by the first half of 2026.
“It (IPO) is fairly imminent. We are working towards it, and we'll keep you posted. A lot of the work has been done. So we'll keep you posted in the coming days,” Thakur said.
In its release for the fourth-quarter earnings, Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd, said: "We are advancing steadily towards the listing of Jio Platforms.”
Jio Platforms, which houses Reliance Industries Ltd’s telecom and digital services business, reported 4% sequential and 13% year-on-year growth in net profit to ₹7,935 crore during the March quarter.
Revenue from operations rose 2.7% quarter-on-quarter and 12.6% year-on-year to ₹38,259 crore, largely led by the growth in digital services, subscriber addition, and increasing data consumption on the network. However, Reliance Jio’s standalone revenue growth of 1.9% was lower than the previous quarter's.
Jio’s monthly Arpu rose marginally sequentially and 3.8% on-year to ₹214 a month from ₹213.7 at the end of December. Promotional 5G offers and the absence of tariff hikes continue to restrict growth in the company’s Arpu.
When asked why Jio Platforms' digital services are growing faster than Jio's core mobility business, the company explained that digital services are growing from a much smaller base.
“In terms of percentage growth, you will expect to see higher growth there. We are launching more services. We have spoken about our data centre offering Meghraj, where the scale of the customer update has picked up quite a bit. Our AI cloud offering, plus some of the new products we have launched, plus our enterprise offering. So that is expected to grow faster,” Thakur said.
The company is banking on organic growth levers in the absence of tariff hikes and aims to attract more subscribers, it said.
