Mumbai, India – Reliance Jio today announced a massive expansion of its Jio AirFiber fixed wireless access (FWA) service, launching commercially in 50 new Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities across India. This aggressive rollout underscores Jio’s strategy to rapidly bring high-speed broadband to areas with limited or no access to physical fiber infrastructure, challenging traditional fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) providers and accelerating the country’s digital inclusion.
The new cities in this expansion phase include locations like Nagpur, Lucknow, Jaipur, and Coimbatore, among others. Jio AirFiber utilizes the company’s extensive 5G network to deliver fiber-like speeds directly to homes and offices wirelessly. This FWA technology bypasses the logistical challenges and high costs associated with laying physical fiber optic cables, allowing for a much faster and wider service rollout. For customers, installation is as simple as plugging in a small indoor unit, which then blankets the premises with high-speed Wi-Fi.
Jio has also introduced a new set of competitive plans to coincide with the expansion. The plans are designed to cater to a range of users, from basic browsing and streaming to high-demand applications like 4K video, online gaming, and remote work. The company is highlighting the key differences between FWA and traditional fiber: while dedicated fiber may offer slightly higher consistency and lower latency for a small subset of power users, AirFiber provides a “good enough” or even superior experience for the vast majority of households, with the significant advantage of instant activation and wider availability.
The service is being bundled with a suite of digital content, including access to over 550 digital TV channels and subscriptions to popular OTT platforms like JioCinema and Netflix, making it a compelling all-in-one entertainment solution. This expansion puts Jio in a dominant position to capture a large segment of the untapped broadband market. By leveraging its 5G network, Jio is not just selling an internet connection but a complete digital lifestyle package, posing a formidable challenge to competitors and setting a new benchmark for broadband delivery in India.
