Finland's telecommunications equipment manufacturer Nokia today said that 5G data traffic in India is getting a huge bounce due to fixed wireless access (FWA) or home broadband and it increased three times in 2024 while 4G has declined. In its annual India Mobile Broadband Index report, Nokia said that the data consumption of 5G FWA users is 12 times compared to users of mobile data.
The 5G FWA holds 25 percent of the total 5G data. These conclusions lead to the position of FWA as the only major category, where telecom companies can quickly redeem 5G. Analysts have stated that Jio Airfor and Airtel Xstream Airfiber together control 60 percent of the home broadband market share.
FWA provides high-speed internet using wireless signals instead of traditional wire infrastructure such as fiber or cable. Like fixed outdoor antenna or an indoor router, the customer's complex equipment takes signals from nearby mobile towers and converts the signal into Wi-Fi or Ethernet.
Average 5G users consume data up to 40 GB per month. As a result, by the end of the year 2024, 5G data traffic stake in the entire network traffic was 35.5 percent while its share in the entire data traffic in metros was 43 percent. For this reason, Nokia believes that 5G will overtake 4G by the first quarter of 2026.
Rapid Use
The report said that India had 29 crore 5G users in the year 2024. This number is more than doubled compared to 13.1 million users of the end of 2023. This figure is going to increase to 77 crores by 2028, which will include 12 million users annually. This is also because in the year 2024, the 5G equipment active in the year 2024 doubled to 27.1 crore.
First Published – March 20, 2025 | 11:08 PM IST
