5G is still rolling out in India. The country has seen the fastest 5G rollout in the world. But for now, to increase adoption, the telcos aren't charging anything extra for 5G. Reliance Jio, India's largest telecom company is now near the completion of its 5G capex cycle. Thus, the telco can finally shift its focus to monetising 5G. Jio and Airtel have already launched 5G FWA (fixed-wireless-access) services in select parts of the country. Jio has launched Jio AirFiber in 8 cities while Airtel is moving in a more conservative way with the launch of Airtel Xstream AirFiber in only two cities.
Analysts believe that while Jio will shift focus towards 5G monetisation, meaningful monetisation will only come after 12 months. This also makes sense as currently, users are still upgrading to 5G phones and experiencing it for the first time. On top of that, the telcos have not yet achieved last-mile coverage with 5G.
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For 5G, the leading money maker for Jio from the consumer segment would be Jio AirFiber. The company has the opportunity to offer bundled services to customers with Jio AirFiber and drive its revenues upwards. It will be interesting to see how the telcos charge for 5G mobile services apart from 5G FWA.
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Jio is offering its 5G FWA service with several plans in two different validities - 6 and 12 months. Airtel, on the other hand, only has one plan available and that too only for 6 months. Jio AirFiber is actually being placed as an alternative solution to fixed-broadband. There are many places in the country, even inside the urban cities, where fiber can't reach. Thus, 5G FWA can potentially resolve this for the consumers and provide them with internet access, which wasn't possible until now inside their homes. Further, the telcos would want to sell their FWA services more as it increases their average revenue per user (ARPU) in the broadband business.
