Grade One Press

Technology reporting you can check

News · Chips & infrastructure

India had 1.1 billion broadband subscriptions in August, and five providers held 98.58% of them

Fixed wireless access, much of it over 5G, grew fastest. Of 13.45 million 5G home-broadband subscribers, more than half were in rural areas.

Grade One Newsroom · 1 min read

Sources: 1 · top grade 1How evidence is graded

1.1bn

broadband subscriptions in India at the end of August, up 0.61% in a month

Grade 1 · Primary

Source: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

What changed
TRAI reported 1,101.21 million broadband subscriptions in India at the end of August 2026, up from 1,094.48 million in July.
Who it counts
Subscriptions reported by 1,579 operators, not people: one person can hold several, and the total includes machine-to-machine mobile connections.
What it does not tell you
How many people are online, or at what speeds. It counts subscriptions as reported by operators.

The full story Check the source

India had 1,101.21 million broadband subscriptions, about 1.1 billion, at the end of August 2026, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reported on 28 September. That was up 0.61% from 1,094.48 million at the end of July [1].

The five largest providers held 98.58% of them: Reliance Jio with 538.03 million, Bharti Airtel with 386.39 million, Vodafone Idea with 130.88 million, BSNL and Atria Convergence [1].

Fixed wireless access, which includes 5G home broadband, grew fastest, by 2.68% to 19.34 million [1].

What it measures

Subscriptions reported to the regulator by 1,579 operators. Mobile broadband accounts for 1,033.24 million of the total, fixed wired connections for 48.63 million [1].

The total includes machine-to-machine mobile connections, used by devices rather than people. Without them it was 1,010.28 million [1].

Subscribers to 5G fixed wireless access rose to 13.45 million: 6.98 million in rural areas and 6.47 million in urban ones [1].

What it does not tell you

How many people use the internet. One person can hold several subscriptions [1].

What speeds or reliability people get. The figures count connections, not their quality [1].

Sources and their grades

  1. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Highlights of Telecom Subscription Data as on 31st August 2026 (Press Release No. 125/2026). Read 29 September 2026. Grade 1 · Primary Released 28 September 2026. From operators' reports to the regulator.

A grade says how much weight a source will take, from 1 (a body that can compel an answer and has nothing to sell) to 5 (somebody describing what they sell, or themselves). The standard sets out what each grade may be used for.

Filed under 5G Broadband India

Comments

Commenting needs an account, made with nothing but an email address. A first comment is read before it appears.

More news

See all