Page 30 - SAMENA ELITE - January-May 2025

INDUSTRY UPDATES
30 JANUARY-MAY 2025

Fixed Wireless Access Gains Momentum in Rural India

Rural consumers in India are taking urban locations. by either FWA or fibre to the home.
to fixed wireless access (FWA) And many expect it to cross the US in
broadband service in a big way, If the GSMA projections hold good the next few years.
altering the perception that it is a globally, there will be 32.4 million FWA
premium service that mostly urban homes all over the world. But the market will have a third
households, especially in big cities challenger from satellite broadband
and metros, can afford. According Based on the first three months’ service, in which companies like
to the latest data from the Telecom subscriber base, India has a fifth of Starlink, One Web, and Kuiper from
Regulatory Authority of India, Reliance the global FWA market. Amazon are in various stages of
Jio, the largest player in FWA, at the The only other country ahead of India setting up shop in the country. The
end of March this year had as much in FWA is the United States, which has large rural affluent population not
as 44 per cent (2.5 million) of its 14.7 million FWA connections. However, connected or with poor or unstable
subscribers in rural areas. It has 5.57 based on industry projections, by terrestrial connectivity could be a
million in all. 2030, India is expected to have 75 market which would also like to try out
million-100 million homes connected satcom service.
Jio has 82 per cent of FWA
subscribers, with the rest being with
Airtel, which launched the service
gradually in September 2023.

While FWA subscribers are spread
across the country, Andhra Pradesh
is at the top, accounting for 8.7 per
cent of FWA rural subscribers for
Jio, followed by Maharashtra, Uttar
Pradesh (east) and Tamil Nadu.

Growth in FWA in India till March
was faster than what the GSMA
Intelligence, the research wing of a
global body of telecom players, had
estimated. The estimate was 6 million
by the end of 2025. Jio and Airtel
together crossed 6.79 million in the
third month of the year. Airtel, which
started after Jio, is concentrating on

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