Post the pandemic, more regional internet service providers (ISPs) have emerged. Along with that, Indian telecom operators have also made strong efforts in driving their FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) business to new heights. Consumers have understood the importance of the fiber broadband during the pandemic because mobile networks can often be unreliable in India. Even with 5G, the fixed-broadband or wireline internet connections are going to be a major part of the consumers' lives. The recent TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) report highlighted the strong growth of wireline connections in India.
Wireline Subscribers Grew QoQ During Q1 FY23
The total wireline subscribers in India at the end of March 2022 quarter were 24.84 million, which was a positive change of 4.42% QoQ. The numbers grew to 25.57 million at the end of June 2022 quarter. This marked a positive change of 2.92%. In terms of wired internet subscribers, there were 27.27 million subscribers at the end of March 2022 while at the end of June 2022, this number went up to 28.73 million.
ISPs such as Excitel Broadband have been expanding fast in the country. Excitel aims to reach over a million subscribers by the end of this year. JioFiber and Airtel Xstream Fiber have been expanding the reach of their fiber to connect more homes with fixed-broadband connections. Today, the demand for fixed-broadband is also more in urban cities because of Smart Home devices. The growth of consumer IoT (internet of things) has just started and by the end of decade it will shape up to be a different reality altogether.
Many customers in different parts of the country are waiting for private ISPs to lay fiber infrastructure so that even they can get super high internet speeds with a ton of data. As the mobile data becomes more expensive, consumers could shift towards fiber broadband connections at an even faster rate because FTTH connections come with a ton of FUP (fair-usage-policy) data.
