5G-FWA: Huge Growth Ahead, Jio Remains Top, Airtel Diverting FWA to Fiber

Last year September, I posted about Jio had became largest 5G-FWA player in the world, now after more than a year, FWA industry has growed a lot. GSA data shows that FWA industry grew rapidly - 542 operators had announced FWA services across 180 countries and territories as of June 2026 and 514 operators had launched services. The growth of FWA industry is also seen the global FWA CPE shipment forecast which is about to reach 23 million units in 2026.

Among the top 5 FWA players - all are American or Indian - and they are Jio, T-Mobile US, Verizon, Airtel India, AT&T. 

Other prominent FWA players are: NTT Docomo (Japan), China Mobile (China), Telstra (Australia), Telenor (Norway/Nordic markets), Omantel (Oman), Vodafone 3 (UK), Cosmote Telekom (Greece), Elisa (Finland), du (UAE), Smart (Philippines), Unitel (Angola). 

India and US operators are launching FWA with similar technology and similar spectrum but their focus are different. In India, for Airtel and Jio (I put Airtel before, as they launch 5G-FWA earlier than Jio on August, 2023 as Airtel Xstream) FWA is primarily a tool for expanding fixed broadband penetration, reaching fibre-unserved homes and accelerating home broadband adoption. However Jio (with n28/700MHz, n78/3500MHHz, n258/26GHz & UBR/unlicensed 5GHz + Network Slicing for AirFiber) is more succesful to reach Indians with their AirFiber, while Airtel is not that succesful. 

That leads Airtel to rethink their FWA strategy. In fact in August 2026, Airtel is pivoting from FWA to fiber as rising chipset costs hurt FWA economics, prioritizing subscriber quality over growth, it said during its Q1 2027 earnings call. And Airtel wants to put more fiber and reach customers with Airtel Fiber Broadband. If Fiber is not feasible, Airtel would tap that zone with FWA. 

While American operators want to monetise existing mobile network capacity, compete with cable/fibre broadband and capture fixed broadband market share by deploying FWA services. In October end, 2026 Verizon announced 1Gbps FWA services to utilize their 1,700MHz of millimeter wave frequencies. 

Infographic - FWA Deployment in India and US (source: ChatGPT)

It is confirmed that Jio remains the king of FWA - as in October 2026, Jio has 14million FWA customers (including pure 5G-FWA and UBR), while Airtel stands with approx 5million FWA customers.