Telecom players are increasingly relying on fiber-over-the-air technology in a bid to address the last mile connectivity challenges.

On Monday, Jio had announced its plans to launch Jio AirFiber in September through which it has set its sight on a 10 fold increase in broadband connections per day. Earlier this month, Airtel had announced the launch of Airtel Xstream AirFiber, a fixed wireless access offering for its consumers in Delhi and Mumbai with plans to scale up in phases.

COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) director general S.P Kochhar told The Telegraph on Tuesday that fiber-over-the-air is a technological advancement that can facilitate providing fiber-like bandwidth through wireless means over short distances.

“Fixed Wireless Access is one of the technologies that can be offered in conjunction with other technologies and can be used for providing broadband services in densely populated/congested areas where laying of optical fibre cables may not be possible or permissible. It can also serve as an effective means to provide emergency communication services when required in specific situations and areas,” said COAI director general S.P Kochhar.

“The advantages of technologies like FWA is that it can be deployed in significantly less time compared to optical fibre cable, as it does not entail laying of physical fiber infrastructure in the last mile. It also has a financial advantage as fibre build-out is capital intensive with lower return on investment outside dense urban areas, while technologies like FWA have lighter investment requirements,” he said.

According to telecom industry observers, large scale fiber deployment is essential for supporting demand for delivering data intensive services both at the enterprise level as well as consumer level, particularly in the 5G era. But it has emerged as one of the biggest challenges for the industry and the numbers show the reality.

According to World Bank data, fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people in India was at 1.96 in 2021 compared to 37.58 in China and 16.92 for the world.

Among the challenges, most crucial is obtaining right of way at state and local level bodies which is not only time consuming, but the charges often widely vary across cities and states. Another major challenge is fibre cuts resulting from uncoordinated development activities and laying of cables by multiple agencies and private contractors. Notably in Calcutta, telecom operators have also pointed out that they are facing fibre cuts as local cable operators are not allowing them to take aerial routes in the last mile.