Reliance Jio operates the largest connectivity business in the country. The telco is recognised globally for serving a subscriber base that spans across diverse geographies and is larger than 450 million. Much recently, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) shared the individual stats for 5G FWA (fixed wireless access) in its monthly performance report. This data highlighted just how fast Jio’s 5G FWA services are growing. While Bharti Airtel has also rolled out 5G FWA, its numbers are very much lower than Jio’s. TelecomTalk has already reported the data, and thus, here we will focus on where the FWA industry is headed.
Jio’s 5G FWA Subscriber Base is 5x Larger than Airtel’s
Reliance Jio’s 5G FWA subscriber base has grown pretty fast. This is because Jio has rolled out 5G FWA in more locations compared to Airtel. Airtel’s 5G FWA is currently majorly powered by the 5G NSA (non-standalone architecture), while Jio’s 5G FWA is powered by 5G SA (standalone architecture). This also makes for a big difference in the kind of experience users get at the end of day.
At the end of January 2025, Airtel’s 5G FWA subscriber base stood at 872,308 (0.87 million) users while Jio’s 5G subscriber base stood at 4,844,071 (4.84 million) users. At the end of February 2025, TRAI said that Airtel’s 5G FWA subscriber base stood at 1,034,436 (1.03 million) users and Jio had 5,236,895 (5.23 million) users.
Amongst this, Jio also has 213,625 subscribers living in the rural India. Bharti Airtel doesn’t have any FWA connections in rural India yet. The advantage of FWA services is that telcos can grow their homes broadband business faster as the need to deploy fiber goes away.
Telcos Look at FWA as the Next Major Money Maker
There’s no doubt that FWA creates better margins for the telcos in the long run. The customers are paying quite higher than what they pay for mobile. The best thing is that the telcos have already mostly completed their 5G rollout in maximum parts of the country.
Reliance Jio wants to add one million 5G FWA customers every month soon. That is the company’s target on paper at least. Bharti Airtel has not given any such stat or number, however, there’s no denying that even Airtel would want to add new FWA users fast.
In the current standing, Jio has almost 80% of the FWA market in India. Vodafone Idea (Vi) is soon expected to come into the mix as it is also now launching 5G for users in different parts of the country.
