Reliance Jio, India's largest telecom operator, has added more 5G FWA (fixed-wireless access) users than Airtel during October 2025. Jio is the only operator to also offer UBR (unlicensed band radio) services. Thus, there's naturally no competition in the arena for Jio for this. Airtel on the other hand is only offer FWA, no UBR services. As for Airtel, there are tests ongoing for deploying UBR, but it won't happen in the short-term. Reliance Jio has the largest home broadband subscriber base in the country. Even when it comes to fiber and AirFiber (FWA/UBR) individually, Jio is ahead of the competition in numbers.
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According to the latest monthly performance data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Jio's FWA subscriber base went up from 7.08 million to 7.39 million from September 2025 to October 2025. This notes an increase of 312,546 or 0.31 million users. For Airtel, the FWA subscriber base went up from 2.31 million to 2.51 million, noting an increasie of 195,312 or 0.19 million users. While in absolute numbers Jio's growth is higher, when it comes to percentage wise growth, Airtel's FWA subscriber base grew by 8.42% MoM (month over month), meanwhile Jio's base grew by 4.41%.
As for the UBR services, Jio's subscriber base went up from 2.48 million to 2.83 million in the same time frame, noting a monthly increase of 354,755 or 0.35 million users, growing at a rate of 14.30% MoM.
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The total industry's FWA subscriber base (Airtel and Jio combined) grew from 9.40 million to 9.91 million, noting an increase of 507,858 users or 0.50 million users. The growth rate of the FWA users for the industry was 5.40% MoM. This would likely accelerate as Vodafone Idea starts deploying 5G FWA as well as Airtel starts deploying UBR services in the coming months and yeas.
