As we know that the smartphone ecosystem in India wasn’t ready for 5G SA, but now Reliance Jio is deploying 5G standalone (SA) networks throughout the country.
Jio 5G SA Deployment In India
In the meantime, the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) had no other choice but to roll out OTA (over-the-air) updates for their 5G devices in India to support the 5G SA of Jio.
This is due to the fact that Jio has hundreds of millions of customers in India.
So, the OEMs can’t ignore such a large number of users and not give their devices the OTA update required for 5G support.
Xiaomi Devices Not Supporting 5G SA
It cannot be denied that there are still smartphones in the market which don’t support 5G SA yet.
Xiaomi, being one of the major smartphone brands in the country, has sold millions of 5G devices so far.
It seems that most of the devices from the company support 5G SA.
Interestingly, there are two devices from this brand which still don’t support 5G SA.
It is noteworthy here that Xiaomi promised that these are 5G devices and sold them to Indian customers on the basis of that promise.
So now with the 5G rolling out across the country, the facts about these “promised” 5G smartphones from Xiaomi that don’t support Jio’s 5G are coming into picture.
For the unawares, the two devices that we are discussing here are the Xiaomi Mi 10 and Xiaomi Mi 10i.
These devices do not support Jio’s 5G, which is a troublesome thing for Jio users who own these smartphones.
On top of that these two are neither ordinary or affordable smartphones.
It seems that Jio users who bought either of the devices with the promise of 5G and future security can’t do anything but weep for their money.
What Is The Solution?
Saving the grace, Airtel is Deploying 5G NSA to Avoid Hurting Investments of Indian Smartphone Users.
The good news here is that most of the smartphones in the market already support Airtel’s 5G.
So, Airtel is deploying 5G non-standalone (NSA) networks, and 5G NSA is supported by most of the devices in the tech ecosystem.
Airtel decided to go with 5G NSA because deploying 5G SA at this point would not have made sense because it would require heavier investment, and many devices don’t even support it.
