Bharti Airtel recently announced the arrival of Airtel Xstream AirFiber in the Indian market. Surprisingly, Airtel launched it before Reliance Jio, a company that had announced Jio AirFiber almost a year ago. However, Airtel's Xstream AirFiber service is not available for customers in every part of the country. Airtel is taking a very calculated approach to check the demand for the product before offering it in more parts of the nation. This is also because Airtel's 5G coverage hasn't reached every corner in every town. Thus, ordering more inventory would only increase costs for Airtel and won't bring the necessary returns to recover from it and then make a profit.
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Airtel Xstream AirFiber: Where is it Available
Airtel Xstream AirFiber is currently available only in two cities in India: Mumbai and Delhi. Both are metropolitan giants and bring a lot of revenue for Airtel. The 5G coverage for Airtel in these cities might be good enough for the company to consider selling the product here initially. With time, as demand for 5G networks increases amongst consumers, the Xstream AirFiber should be available in more parts of India.
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Airtel Xstream AirFiber: Cost
Airtel Xstream AirFiber is a plug-and-play device, that will be available for you at a one-time refundable security deposit of Rs 2500. It comes with a single plan right now, which costs Rs 4,425 (exclusive of GST) and gives users 100 Mbps of internet speed for 6 months. Whether the speed offered to the customers is uniform for both upload and download is unknown.
Airtel Xstream AirFiber is the first 5G FWA (fixed wireless access) service in India. It is meant for consumers who don't have any way to get a fixed-line internet connection. Laying fiber in every part of the country is hard and thus the Xstream AirFiber is a potential product for many customers who live in fiber coverage gaps.
