Maha Kumbh 2025: Jio & Ericsson enable superior 5G experience

Ericsson and Jio Infocomm Ltd (Jio) today claimed in an announcement that the Jio True 5G Standalone (SA) network delivered an exceptional customer experience amid record-breaking participation at Maha Kumbh 2025, the world’s largest spiritual gathering in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. This spiritual event is being held after 144 years, from 13 January to 26 February, and has seen participation from over 660 million people. During this period, an unprecedented surge in traffic was also observed in Varanasi and Ayodhya.

Millions of visitors shared images and videos of the Maha Kumbh and stayed connected with friends and family during the event by leveraging the Jio True 5G SA network. The unprecedented demand for voice and data traffic during the event was claimed to have met through proactive planning, advanced design, innovative mega-capacity solution deployments, and real-time traffic monitoring by Ericsson and Jio. Jio 5G users were able to experience superior voice quality using Voice over NR (5G voice).

In preparation for the high density of visitors expected during the Maha Kumbh, Ericsson and Jio collaborated to implement strategic solutions across the Jio True 5G SA network using SA features such as network slicing, carrier aggregation with the 700 MHz band, and VoNR. Extensive real-time traffic monitoring, data analytics, and instantaneous optimisations further ensured superior network performance, accommodating the surge in connected users and their service demands in the highest traffic consumption areas. Dedicated teams, supported by five on-field war rooms, worked around the clock on foot in the "no vehicle zone" to ensure service availability.

Vijay Sharma, Head of Customer Unit Reliance Jio at Ericsson, said, “Ericsson is proud to have collaborated with Jio to deliver an exceptional network experience during Maha Kumbh 2025. On one of the peak days, the Jio network successfully catered to 20 million voice and 400 million data service requests on 5G. An estimated 55 per cent of the total data traffic during the event was served by Ericsson’s 5G solutions.

“Our proactive approach, software solutions, and real-time monitoring were instrumental in maintaining network reliability and performance, demonstrating our commitment to driving excellence in mobile communications even under the most demanding conditions,” Sharma added.

Key network optimisations, such as accessibility handling, including priority access for government agencies managing the event, resource management, congestion control, network coverage and continuity, and serviceability, played crucial roles in preventing network congestion due to spikes in voice and data traffic. Ericsson’s Automated Radio Resource Partitioning feature for network slicing helped Jio secure existing Fixed Wireless Access performance while ensuring eMBB performance.

To further support LTE traffic demand, a 10 MHz spectrum in the 700 MHz band was deployed without additional hardware or physical changes. This rapid deployment significantly alleviated congestion, handling 10 per cent of eMBB traffic and 25 per cent of voice traffic on the overall LTE network.