New Delhi: Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio is likely to emerge as a winner in India’s 5G race as its homegrown 5G technology will help it save massive cost, say brokerages.

Reliance Jio’s plans to build its own 5G software stack and embrace Open-RAN techniques will help it save up on hefty premium payouts to traditional gear vendors, including existing networks supplier Samsung, the Economic Times quoted brokerage Sanford C Bernstein as saying in a report. The brokerage further mentioned that Jio’s pact with Qualcomm would also help it roll out advanced 5G infrastructure and services.

“It’s possible Jio has managed to build its own 5G software stack and is likely embracing Open-RAN techniques or possibly even Cloud-RAN as an architecture… This would allow them to avoid paying to existing equipment providers (ie Ericsson, Nokia or Samsung in Jio’s case for 4G) and potentially allow them to export their expertise to other developing markets,” that have not yet started to upgrade to 5G, the publication quoted Bernstein as saying in a note.

Also, Jio may get an added advantage as the global push-back on China’s Huawei as a supplier of 5G networking components could be the catalyst that might allow Open-RAN architecture to gain a stronger foothold into existing operator networks, the brokerage mentioned.

Worth mentioning here is that RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani in the company’s Annual General Meeting last month has already mentioned that Jio has developed a homegrown 5G technology solution and planned to offer it to other telcos worldwide. This is going to be the first such initiative by a mobile operator, experts say.

Jio’s holding company Jio Platforms over the last four months have been able to attract long term strategic and marque investors to invest in the company as future plans of Jio in the telecom and e-commerce front give growth and revenue visibility to investors. RIL share has rallied over 140% since it hit a 52-week low of Rs 867.43 in the month of March.