Airtel leads in FWA broadband experience, Jio in subscribers: Opensignal

India’s fixed broadband market is seeing a shift as fixed wireless access (FWA) gains ground alongside traditional fibre connections. While wired broadband continues to account for the larger share of subscriptions, FWA is emerging as an alternative, particularly in areas where laying fibre cables is difficult or expensive.

Amid this growth, Bharti Airtel has emerged as the top performer in home broadband experience, ahead of Reliance Jio and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) across key parameters, according to a November 2026 report by network analytics firm Opensignal.

Opensignal’s India Fixed Broadband Experience report compares Airtel, Jio and BSNL across five parameters – reliability, consistent quality, download speed, upload speed and video experience.

Airtel led in all five across both overall fixed broadband and FWA, despite Jio having a significantly larger subscriber base in the market. The findings come as FWA expands in India, which had 19.3 million FWA and 48.6 million wired broadband subscriptions at the end of August 2026, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

What is FWA

FWA is a broadband technology that uses wireless networks, typically 5G, to provide internet connectivity to homes and businesses. Unlike conventional fibre broadband, which requires physical cables to be connected to individual premises, FWA delivers internet through a wireless connection between a nearby mobile network tower and a receiver installed at the customer’s location.

The technology allows telecom operators to expand their home broadband services without having to lay fibre cables across every neighbourhood. This makes it useful in areas where fibre deployment is expensive, time-consuming or difficult because of geographical and infrastructure limitations.

FWA gains ground as broadband market expands

India’s FWA market has grown alongside the expansion of 5G networks. According to TRAI data, FWA subscriptions increased 2.7 per cent in August 2026, compared with 1 per cent growth in fixed wired broadband subscriptions during the same month.

Of the 19.3 million FWA subscriptions, 13.5 million were 5G FWA connections, while another 5.4 million used unlicensed-band radio (UBR) technology. The report said around 7 million of the 5G FWA subscriptions were in rural areas, while 6.5 million were in urban areas.

Despite the faster growth in FWA, wired broadband remains the larger segment, accounting for more than 70 per cent of India’s fixed broadband connections. The expansion of FWA also gives telecom operators another way to reach customers who may not have access to reliable wired broadband services.

Airtel leads across broadband experience measures

Opensignal’s assessment placed Airtel ahead of Jio and BSNL across all five overall fixed broadband experience categories. The company recorded an overall Broadband Reliability Experience score of 486 points on Opensignal’s scale of 100 to 1,000. This was higher than Jio’s 423 points and BSNL’s 419 points.

Reliability measures how consistently users can connect to the internet and complete common online activities without interruptions. This includes activities across multiple devices, such as video streaming, browsing and working from home.

Airtel also recorded higher download and upload speeds than its competitors. Its average download speed stood at 38.4 Mbps, compared with 37.9 Mbps for BSNL and 30.5 Mbps for Jio. In upload speeds, Airtel recorded 26.7 Mbps, followed closely by BSNL at 25.9 Mbps. Jio’s average upload speed stood at 21 Mbps.

The difference between Airtel and BSNL was relatively small in both speed categories. BSNL trailed Airtel by just 0.5 Mbps in download speeds and 0.8 Mbps in upload speeds. Airtel’s download and upload speeds were around 26-27 per cent higher than Jio’s, according to the report.

The operator also secured the top position in consistent quality and video experience. Consistent quality measures whether a network can support everyday internet activities, taking into account factors such as download and upload speeds, latency, jitter and packet loss. Video experience, meanwhile, assesses the quality of video streaming over broadband connections.

Airtel leads Jio in FWA speeds and reliability

Airtel also secured the top position across all five categories in the fixed wireless broadband segment, including download speed, upload speed, reliability, consistent quality and video experience.

Its average FWA download speed stood at 32.4 Mbps, compared with 25.7 Mbps for Jio. Airtel’s upload speed was 20.7 Mbps, while Jio recorded 17.1 Mbps.

The difference was also visible in network reliability. Airtel recorded an FWA Reliability score of 450 points, compared with Jio’s 382 points. This represented an 18 per cent lead for Airtel.

On consistent quality, Airtel scored 66.2 per cent, while Jio recorded 55 per cent. This means around two-thirds of Airtel’s network tests met Opensignal’s quality thresholds, compared with slightly more than half of Jio’s tests.

The findings indicate that having a larger subscriber base does not necessarily translate into a better network experience across all performance measures.

However, FWA performance can also vary depending on network congestion, the distance between a customer and a mobile tower, available spectrum and the number of users connected to a particular network.

Jio leads FWA subscriber additions

Jio continues to have a larger presence in the segment in terms of subscribers. Jio’s AirFiber service crossed 14 million subscribers at the end of June 2026, accounting for approximately half of its total fixed broadband customer base of 28.6 million, according to the report.

TRAI data for August 2026 showed that Jio had 9.4 million of India’s 13.5 million 5G FWA subscriptions. The company also accounted for the entire 5.4 million UBR subscriber base.

Jio’s position reflects its early expansion in the FWA market and its use of 5G infrastructure to offer home broadband services.

Airtel, meanwhile, has been increasing its focus on fibre-based broadband connections. The company added around 8 million fibre home passes during the 2025-26 financial year through its own network expansion and partnerships with local cable operators.

A fibre home pass refers to a location where a telecom operator has extended its fibre network and can potentially provide a broadband connection.

Airtel has indicated that it intends to use FWA primarily in locations where extending fibre infrastructure is not feasible. This suggests that the company is looking at fibre and FWA as complementary technologies rather than relying on wireless broadband for all new connections.

Regional internet providers remain part of the competition

The Indian fixed broadband market is not limited to the three major operators. Several regional internet service providers (ISPs) continue to compete through fibre-based broadband services, particularly in areas where they have established local networks.

According to Opensignal, providers such as ACT, Kerala Vision, Excitel, GTPL, Hathway, Alliance, Asianet and Netplus remain active in different parts of the country. Many of these companies use partnerships with local cable operators (LCOs) and existing cable infrastructure to extend their broadband coverage.

Their presence makes competition in the fixed broadband market more localised. While Airtel, Jio and BSNL have a national footprint, regional providers can compete in individual cities and neighbourhoods through their existing infrastructure and customer relationships.

This is particularly relevant in a market where the availability and quality of broadband connections can vary considerably between locations.

As FWA adoption increases and fibre networks continue to expand, competition in India’s home broadband market is likely to depend increasingly on the quality and consistency of connections, rather than subscriber additions alone.

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