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Opensignal named Airtel India's Best Home Internet provider and Best Fixed Wireless Home Internet provider in its November 2026 India Fixed Broadband Experience report, published on November 11, according to FoneArena. Airtel won all five Overall Experience awards, ahead of Jio and BSNL.
Key facts
- Overall Reliability: Airtel scored 486 on Opensignal's 100-1,000 scale against Jio's 423, a 63-point or 15% lead, as Gadgets 360 also reports.
- Overall speeds: Airtel was 26-27% faster than Jio, which recorded 30.5 Mbps down and 21.0 Mbps up. BSNL trailed Airtel by only 0.5 Mbps on downloads and 0.8 Mbps on uploads.
- Fixed wireless access (FWA): Airtel recorded 32.4 Mbps down and 20.7 Mbps up, against Jio's 25.7 Mbps and 17.1 Mbps.
- FWA Consistent Quality: 66.2% for Airtel against 55% for Jio. FWA Reliability: 450 against 382.
- Measurement window: 90 days, April 1 to June 29, 2026.
What the report measures
Opensignal analyzed real-world data from fixed broadband users across five measures: Consistent Quality, Download Speed, Upload Speed, Video Experience and Reliability. Consistent Quality looks at latency, jitter, packet loss and speeds, and counts the share of tests that meet required thresholds. About two-thirds of Airtel's FWA tests passed, versus just over half of Jio's.
The report notes that plan characteristics such as speed tiers and data caps differ between providers and affect average results. Airtel's margins in Consistent Quality and Video Experience at the overall level were narrower than in reliability and speed.
Experience versus scale
The experience lead does not match market size. According to TRAI figures cited by FoneArena, Jio led wired broadband at the end of August 2026 with 14.8 million subscribers, followed by Airtel with 11.4 million and BSNL with 4.56 million. Jio also held 9.4 million of India's 13.5 million 5G FWA subscriptions and all 5.4 million UBR FWA connections. Its JioAirFiber service passed 14 million subscribers at the end of June 2026.
Airtel has been adding FWA customers more slowly. TRAI data showed it added 83,000 5G FWA subscribers in April-June 2026, down from 666,000 in the prior quarter, while Jio added 530,000. In August, Airtel added 96,000 against Jio's 149,000 plus 230,000 UBR customers.
On its Q1 FY27 earnings call, Airtel described a "pivot to fiber", reserving FWA for places without fiber. It cited higher churn among customers won through low entry pricing and rising memory and chipset costs that weaken FWA equipment economics. Its Homes business reached 14.7 million customers at the end of June 2026, adding 473,000 in the quarter. The Opensignal report suggests that limiting load on the FWA network, rather than chasing subscriber additions, may help explain Airtel's results.
What to watch
The survey period ended in June, so later reports will show whether Jio's faster FWA growth narrows or widens the experience gap. Also worth tracking are rural FWA, which made up 52% of the 5G FWA base with 7 million subscriptions, and BSNL, whose share of wireline subscribers slipped to 13.72% in August from 13.85% in July.
