Bharti Airtel is expanding its broadband network to 2,000 towns across India with 35 million home passes. The telco is planning to do this in the next three years. In the recent earnings call, Bharti Airtel CEO, Gopal Vittal said Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) is a very large opportunity for the company. Vittal shared that Airtel is continuing to scale up investments so that it can take its broadband network to over 2,000 towns across the country with 35 million home passes.
For the unaware, home passes here mean the area which is covered with the company’s fiber for services. These homes might or might not have Airtel’s broadband connection, but they can opt for purchasing one anytime they wish to. From the words of Vittal, it can be assumed that Airtel will have the capacity to service 35 million homes across India with fiber broadband connection in the next three years.
Airtel Currently Providing Fiber Broadband Services in 436 Towns
Bharti Airtel is currently providing fiber broadband services in 436 towns of the country. Airtel’s total broadband subscriber base stands at 3.8 million now. Vittal noted that Airtel had seen a strong customer growth of close to half a million in the September quarter which is the highest level of net additions the company has ever made in a single quarter.
During the September quarter, Bharti Airtel added over 1.1 million home passes. Airtel offers its FTTH service under the ‘Airtel Xstream Fiber’ brand. Users can choose from broadband plans ranging between 40 Mbps to 1 Gbps. All of the plans come with unlimited data (3.3TB) and also offer Airtel Thanks benefits. Some of the higher-end broadband plans also offer customers over-the-top (OTT) benefits including Disney+ Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Airtel Xstream, Wynk Music, and more.
The demand for FTTH service is only going to grow from here for the next few years. Airtel can benefit from the increasing demand if the telco can keep on investing and expanding its infrastructure.
