The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in a report on Saturday said that the country had 19.08 million wired broadband subscribers as of January 31, 2020. According to the Telecom Subscription report, the total number of wired broadband subscribers decreased 0.27% between December 2019 to January 2020. TRAI in its report said that India had 19.14 million wired broadband subscribers as of December 31, 2019. Further, TRAI data has revealed that the top wired broadband service providers including BSNL and Reliance Jio have lost subscribers in January. However, Bharti Airtel, Act Broadband and Hathway Cable and Datacom have gained subscribers in the same period.
BSNL and Reliance Jio Lost Wired Broadband Subscribers
BSNL with 8.23 million subscribers continues its position as the top wired broadband service provider in India while Airtel takes the second spot with 2.43 million subscribers as of January 31, 2020.
Further, Atria Convergence Technologies is said to have 1.54 million subscribers while Hathway Cable and Datacom is at fourth spot with 0.92 million subscribers. Reliance Jio completes the top five with a subscriber base of 0.84 million as of January 31, 2020.
Despite retaining the positions as the top service providers of India, BSNL and Reliance Jio have lost wired broadband subscribers in January.
According to TRAI data, BSNL reported 8.39 million subscribers as of December 31, 2019 indicating that the state-owned operator lost 0.16 million subscribers in January. Similarly, Reliance Jio lost 0.02 million subscribers in January as the operator reported 0.86 million subscribers in December.
Airtel, ACT Broadband and Hathway Gain Subscribers in January
Meanwhile, Airtel reported an increase of 0.01 million subscribers in January as the operator reported 2.42 million subscribers in December as compared to 2.43 million in January.
Similarly, ACT Broadband reported 0.02 million increase in subscribers in January as the Bengaluru based operator reported 1.52 million subscribers in December as compared to 1.54 million in January.
Hathway Cable and Datacom also reported a similar increase in subscribers with the operator reporting 0.90 million in December as compared to 0.92 million in January.
It however has to be noted that Reliance Jio continues its position as the top broadband service provider in India under combined services of mobile and wired broadband. As of January 31, 2020 Reliance Jio has a combined subscriber base of 377.41 million with Airtel taking the second spot with a subscriber base of 144.77 million. Vodafone Idea takes the third spot with a subscriber base of 117.95 million while BSNL with a combined base of 24.95 million takes the fourth spot. Atria Convergence rounds up the top five with a subscriber base of 1.54 million as of January 31, 2020. TRAI said that the top five service providers accounted for 98.99% market share of total broadband subscribers.
