Bharti Airtel plans to shift to Standalone (SA) 5G for Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) by December 2024. The company is currently conducting trials to test if SA can achieve better uplink performance for FWA, as it operates over a static network, said Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO of Bharti Airtel Limited, during the company's recent earnings webinar. Vittal highlighted that for mobile services, the decision to switch from NSA to SA 5G depends on the load on spectrum bands. As more spectrum becomes available, Airtel can allocate more bandwidth to 5G and eventually transition to a fully standalone network. This shift, however, will take three to four years.
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Standalone 5G Use Cases
Vittal explained that Airtel can enable certain use cases with standalone 5G, even if not across the entire network. For example, the company already serves some enterprise clients on standalone networks. Fixed wireless access is a good use case. We believe standalone networks will improve uplink performance, although this hypothesis needs testing. SA networks also allow for network slicing as mobile traffic grows.
"Fixed wireless access is a good use case, where the hypothesis is that if we use a standalone network, we will have better uplink performance. That hypothesis needs to be proven and tested. It will also provide the capacity to slice the network for standalone as mobile traffic builds up," he explained.
Airtel Hybrid 5G Approach
Referring to the US, where companies like T-Mobile operate both SA and NSA networks, Vittal said Airtel could adopt a similar hybrid approach. "It's just software," he explained. "The radios and baseband units are the same. You just need a standalone core and the software to steer specific use cases or areas onto the standalone network."
Continue NSA for Consumer Usage
In the short term, Airtel will continue leveraging Non-Standalone (NSA) networks for consumer services, while SA will be used for business and FWA services. If a need arises to deploy SA for specific areas or use cases, the company will do so. Ultimately, Airtel expects all NSA networks to transition to SA, though there is no immediate urgency.
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Slow Transition to 5G SA
Airtel said it holds sub-GHz and substantial mid-band spectrum, which provides extensive reach and coverage, enabling NSA mode with the 3.5 GHz band. As mid-band capacity becomes available, 4G traffic declines and 5G device adoption increases, Airtel will transition its spectrum incrementally to SA 5G.
Airtel added about 5,000 new network sites and over 9,800 route kilometres of fibre in the quarter to enhance its infrastructure, according to Gopal.
SIM Consolidation
In the mobility segment, Airtel saw a 2.9 million customer reduction due to SIM consolidation following tariff adjustments, though this decline was less significant than in previous instances. The trend reversed in October, with a net gain in customer additions. Airtel also added 4.2 million smartphone users during the quarter, according to the CEO.
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Airtel 5G Users
Expanding its 5G coverage, Airtel closed the quarter with 105 million 5G users, supported by FWA expansion. The company is now live with Airtel Wi-Fi services in over 2,000 cities, using a combination of Fixed Wireless Access and FTTH services.
