Bharti Airtel has rapidly expanded its Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) during the Q2FY25. This expansion is driving both the addressable market and the expansion of Airtel's Wi-Fi services. Airtel is now live in more than 2,000 cities through a combination of fixed wireless access and FTTH, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Bharti Airtel Limited, Gopal Vittal, said during the Q2FY25 earnings call. In the broadband segment, Bharti Airtel added nearly 6 lakh customers, a significant jump from previous quarters.
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Airtel Wi-Fi Services
As previously reported, Bharti Airtel offers high-speed broadband services (wired and wireless) under its Airtel Wi-Fi offering, where the company provides fixed wireline services along with its 5G FWA wireless services.
Addressing a question about customer response to FWA, user experience, and the unit economics of FWA versus fiber broadband from Airtel's perspective, Gopal said Airtel has stepped up customer additions during the quarter, which the company finds satisfactory. However, according to the CEO, there is still a long way to go as the company is not yet as competitive as it needs to be.
Competitiveness and Need for Improvement
"We are not as competitive as we need to be and you will see consistent work from us to improve this over the next two quarters. We are activating all of our channels across not just the broadband channels but our mass retail channels, our DTH channels, to make sure that all of this actually drives broadband," Gopal said.
While customer response to FWA has been positive, leveraging the underutilised 5G network, Vittal emphasised that there is still room for improvement in competitiveness. Airtel is prioritising fiber rollouts in areas where fixed wireless capacity might face constraints in the coming months.
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Customer Response to FWA
Speaking about the customer response on FWA, Gopal highlighted, "Given the empty nature of the 5G network, it is a good response and it is a good experience, we are able to deliver the speeds that we are promising both on uplink and downlink and we do not see an issue."
"We have done a lot of modeling to see at what point the capacities get a little bit more constrained, we are using that and have put in place algorithms to make sure that our roll out of fiber goes in on priority into those places where we believe in the next one year or 18 months we could see some challenge in terms of our fixed wireless capacities," Gopal added.
Unit Economics
On the unit economics front, Airtel reported that the costs for FWA and fiber broadband are now comparable. This comes after efforts with OEMs and chipset manufacturers to reduce the cost of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), making the cost per connected home pass for both technologies similar.
"As far as the unit economics is concerned, the unit economics are now comparable between both FTTH and FWA. We have been able to work with the OEMs and the chipset manufacturers to dramatically bring down the cost of the fixed wireless access- CPE," the CEO noted, adding that the router is the same for both technologies.
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Reduced CPE Costs
Furthermore, Vittal explained that now, with the CPE costs reduced, the cost per connected home pass—whether for fixed wireless access or fiber—is more or less similar. Airtel is also working to bring these costs down further. "We are determined to try and see how we can bring that down further," he added.
The unit economics highlighted by the CEO do not include the cost of the spectrum utilised for FWA, as that spectrum is already serving consumers in the mobile business.
FWA Transition to 5G SA
Airtel may currently be in the process of transitioning—or may have already transitioned—to standalone 5G for FWA. During the call, the CEO indicated that Airtel plans to move to Standalone 5G by December after conducting trials to ensure improved uplink performance for fixed wireless access.
Vittal also cited the use of 5G FWA for enterprises, noting that Airtel is already serving a few enterprise customers on standalone networks. The company aims to deliver better uplink performance using 5G SA and is moving in that direction. Vittal referred to the example of US telco T-Mobile, which operates hybrid networks.
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Hybrid Network Example
"If you look at all telcos around the world take the US telcos whether it is T-Mobile or whatever they have both hybrid networks. They have NSA and SA so this is just software. The radios are the same, the baseband units are the same, everything is the same, you need a standalone core and you need software to be able to steer a particular used case or a particular area on standalone," Gopal explained.
Deliver the Right Experience
Airtel intends to "deliver the right experience for the user" and will deploy Standalone 5G wherever necessary. The company uses a combination of sub-gigahertz and mid-band spectrum, along with the 3.5 GHz band, which provides both geographical and coverage reach and allows Airtel to operate efficiently in NSA mode.
