Airtel, Jio focus on wireless home 5G for better monetisation
India’s top telcos Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have accelerated efforts to expand their fixed wireless access (FWA) offerings to provide home broadband services, helping them monetise 5G airwaves and boost data usage.
Analysts said the strategy to offer 5G on standalone (SA) technology for FWA helps telcos reduce reliance on capital-intensive fibre deployments to provide home broadband services in the near future.
They said 5G on SA technology is a pure 5G network, while 5G non-standalone (NSA) technology – which Airtel uses for accelerated deployment of 5G mobile services across India – requires less investment as it leverages existing 4G mobile infrastructure.
“Bharti (Airtel) has adopted a strategy of offering 5G on a standalone basis through network slicing to address the immediate increase in data consumption on home connections,” stated Balaji Subramanian, vice president at IIFL Securities, an equity research firm.
. “Fibre rollout is costly and time-consuming. It also involves large investments in areas like Mumbai, where RoW (right of way) permission is granted at a cost of Rs 1 crore per kilometre, and hence, requires a long time to generate returns,” Subramanian said. “Also, it is difficult to challenge the stronghold of local internet service providers in tier-1 and metro markets,” he said, adding that FWA could help the telco overcome these hurdles in the near future. Airtel is in direct competition with Jio which is currently the leader in the home connectivity segment with around 12 million premises connected to JioFiber/JioAirFiber by March 2024, compared to 7.95 million for Airtel.