Bharti Airtel, India's second-largest telecom operator, is soon expected to launch 5G SA (standalone architecture) services. The company has already confirmed that intially, the 5G SA will come for FWA (fixed-wireless architecture) customers. Then, once the maximum user base of Airtel is using 5G phones and there's capacity issues with the networks, the telco will start offering 5G SA to mobile customers. In an interesting note, Xiaomi is now sending a new update to the Xiaomi 15 Ultra in India. What's interesting about this update is that it comes with Airtel 5G SA support. This is mentioned very clearly on the update log.
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This means that Airtel and OEMs (original equipment makers) are working on 5G SA support for mobile users. Airtel's upcoming quarterly results and earnings call for Q1 FY26 should reveal more data on this. Currently, only Reliance Jio offers 5G SA services in India. Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) have started with 5G NSA (non-standalone architecture). It is more expensive to deploy 5G SA. Because there wasn't any imminent return visible for investing in 5G SA, Airtel chose to go with the more cost efficient option - 5G NSA.
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However, eventually Airtel will need to upgrade to 5G SA. This will benefit the telco in offering more specialised use cases of 5G such as network slicing and more. Jio's 5G SA networks are available throughout India now. Airtel will unlikely move aggressively towards 5G SA, however, the phase of shifting should start now. The telco wants to improve networks so that it can offer superior services compared to its competitors. Vodafone Idea (Vi) will also some day start deploying 5G SA, but for now, it will continue to expand with 5G NSA.
