Owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the fixed-line broadband industry has experience a boost. This is because most activities are now being conducted from home and due to mobile data limitations, people have to opt for the reliability and speeded offered by these internet connections.
As per the data provided by TRAI, since July 2020, new wired broadband connections have grown by 2% on average every month, in comparison to only 0.5% before the pandemic. By March 2021, India has around 22.8 million wired broadband connections. Moreover, the data state that the growth rate in March was around 2.2%.
As per experts, we will soon experience a hybrid work environment where wired internet connections will be a basic necessity just like any other utility. They added that even an average household uses 5-6 devices concurrently because of which fixed broadband has become a necessity.
Broadband service providers are no longer confined to metro cities, but have also made their way to tier-2 locations such as Jaipur, Varanasi, Vijayawada, Mangalore, and Coimbatore. The fiscal year 2021 saw a 27% growth in Airtel Xstream Fiber’s customer base. Airtel provides its fiber connection in almost over 200 cities.
T V Ramachandran, the president of Broadband India Forum said that processes and permissions should be made simpler for the industry so that fiber optic infrastructure can be ramped up and more ground could also be covered.
