Is 5G-enabled FWA the answer to the monetisation prayers of Jio and Airtel?

The cost of more towers is more than neutralised by the low price the telcos paid for the spectrum. Spectrum used currently for FWA is 43 times more expensive than the millimetre band

The two dominant telecom service providers in the country, Reliance Jio and Airtel, have refrained from increasing tariffs for more than 20 months. A tariff increase may have come in the way of adding more subscribers to their networks as well as nudging existing users to upgrade from 4G to 5G.

The non-increase has helped in increasing the number of 5G subscribers to 170 million. However, analysts say the time has come when the two telcos can no longer put off tariff increases. In fact, tariffs can go up any time now, which will shore up the key metric of