For the first time in three years, policy is starting to catch up with implementation in India’s telecom sector. The unified licence, which had governed the industry for over a century, has been replaced by a digital authorisation system. 5G coverage is now near-complete, and operators are already working on the transition to 5G-Advanced technology. Meanwhile, early groundwork is under way on 6G, where India hopes to be a contributor to global standards rather than just an adopter. With over 1.2 billion subscribers, telcos are looking well beyond core connectivity for growth into artificial intelligence (AI), data centres, subsea cables and satellite tie-ups as revenue per user on mobile services has largely stagnated.
Market dynamics
By mid-2026, 5G coverage extended across virtually all states and union territories, with roughly 523,000 base transceiver stations installed and subscribers crossing 400 million, around 85 per cent of the population, as per the communications minister’s September 2026 statement.
Digital infrastructure too has become inseparable from the telecom story. Operational data centre capacity stood between 1.3 GW and 1.7 GW through 2025-26, with projections of 4-8 GW by 2030 as AI workloads, cloud adoption and data localisation mandates under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 accelerate demand. Google’s $15 billion, five-year AI hub commitment in Visakhapatnam (with Airtel and AdaniConnex) and Jio’s new subsea cable landing station at Digha, West Bengal, are among some marquee investments. Very recently, the government has also urged Microsoft to site future data centres closer to power sources rather than coastlines – a signal that grid proximity, not just connectivity, is now shaping where capacity gets built.
However, the persistent bottleneck remains the wireline layer. Tower fiberisation stands at only around 36 per cent, well short of the draft National Telecom Policy 2025’s (NTP-25) 80 per cent target for 2030. Deep fiberisation and resolution of right-of-way hurdles are now seen as prerequisites for leveraging both 5G-Advanced and AI infrastructure.
Policy and regulatory developments
The single biggest regulatory shift has been the dismantling of India’s century-old licensing framework. The Telecommunications (Authorisation for Provision of Principal Telecommunication Services) Rules, 2026 came into effect on June 23, 2026, replacing the unified licence with a digital authorisation valid for up to 20 years and formally retiring the Telegraph Act of 1885. A follow-up framework, the Authorisation Rules for Telecommunication Network, introduced in July 2026, created six distinct network categories that operators can apply for entirely through the telecom e-services portal.
Spectrum policy has also been overhauled. The National Frequency Allocation Plan 2025, effective December 30, 2025, is now the master reference governing spectrum use from 8.3 kHz to 3,000 GHz. The lower 6 GHz band was delicensed in January 2026 for indoor use, paving the way for gigabit-class Wi-Fi 6E/7 deployment, and draft rules on administrative spectrum allocation followed in June 2026, covering state-run operators, law enforcement and satellite providers.
On consumer protection, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) moved from draft to final rules within the past few weeks with the Telecom Consumer Protection (Thirteenth Amendment) Regulations, 2026, released on September 23, 2026. These now mandate voice– and SMS-only special tariff vouchers with shorter, more affordable validity options, after 1,132 stakeholder responses flagged that low-income consumers were underserved by data-bundled plans. Separately, TRAI directed entities regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority to adopt the “1600” numbering series for voice calls to curb spam. Further, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has pushed over-the-top (OTT) platforms to bind apps to a single active device number to counter “digital arrest” scams. NTP-25 itself remains under finalisation, still targeting 100 per cent 4G and 90 per cent 5G population coverage, 80 per cent tower fiberisation, 100 million fixed broadband connections and a million public Wi-Fi hotspots by 2030.
Expanding 5G landscape and the road to 6G
With the capital-intensive 5G build largely complete, operators have pivoted to monetisation and to 5G-Advanced (3GPP Release 18). Fixed wireless access (FWA) remains the dominant commercial use case as Jio and Airtel continue to expand FWA aggressively for home broadband, while Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited differentiates through its Quantum 5G FWA offering. A notable recent milestone remains T-Mobile and Jio announcing what they describe as the world’s first 5G standalone (SA) roaming connection, built on Syniverse’s connectivity platform, a marker that Indian 5G SA infrastructure has matured to the point of supporting international roaming for internet of things and real-time applications.
Enterprise use cases are also gaining ground beyond pilots. Recent large deployments include a 25-year deal between ACES India and Jio to bring 4G/5G connectivity to the Noida International Airport, and a similar 25-year agreement Vi has just signed with ACES India for Mumbai Metro’s Aqua Line 3. Both these signal that private/enterprise-grade 5G is moving into long-term infrastructure contracts rather than isolated trials.
On 6G, India is trying to shift from adopter to standards-setter. The Telecommunication Engineering Centre has partnered with IIT Bombay on 6G architecture, AI-driven networks and satellite communications, and the Telecom Technology Development Fund had approved 104 projects worth Rs 2.71 billion for 6G research as of February 2026. IIIT Hyderabad has also partnered with Hexagon R&D India to set up a digital twin centre of excellence, feeding into the broader 6G and AI-network research push. Domestic research and development (R&D) spending, however, remains under 1 per cent of revenue against a 15-25 per cent global benchmark, a gap the sector will need to close to make good on its target of a 10 per cent share of global 6G patents by 2030.
BharatNet, PM-WANI and government programmes
BharatNet’s physical build-out continues to outpace actual utilisation. Around 221,000 gram panchayats were made service-ready by June 2026, with 719,000 km of optical fibre cable (OFC) laid under the Rs 1.39 trillion Amended BharatNet Programme. Yet a parliamentary standing committee has flagged that, as of February 2026, only 78,899 of nearly 264,000 gram panchayats had operational points of presence, and just 948,000 fibre-to-the-home connections were active against a 15 million target. Converting built infrastructure into actual rural digital inclusion will require resolving procurement delays, agency disputes and difficult-terrain challenges through state-wise audits. PM-WANI continues to underpin last-mile public Wi-Fi, and the National Broadband Mission 2.0 remains the umbrella push for high speed, sustainable broadband access.
Emerging growth areas
Satellite communications delivered the year’s most consequential structural shift with the confirmation that satellite spectrum will be assigned administratively rather than auctioned, resolving a long-standing dispute between satellite and terrestrial operators. Building on TRAI’s May 2025 pricing recommendations (4 per cent of adjusted gross revenue or Rs 3,500 per MHz annually, whichever is higher, plus a per-subscriber urban levy for non-GSO services), DoT’s draft Telecommunications (Spectrum Assignment by Administrative Process) Rules, 2026 closed public consultation in July 2026, with mandatory security clearance now required for consumer-facing satellite services. Starlink, Jio-SES and Eutelsat OneWeb have all secured licences, though Starlink and Jio-SES were still clearing security and spectrum formalities as of mid-2026. In a significant milestone, the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, the Indian Space Research Organisation and DoT’s Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing validated Reliance Jio’s proposal for a roughly 1,600-satellite low earth orbit constellation in July 2026, putting India on comparable footing with global mega-constellation operators.
On data centres, Union Budget 2026-27 introduced a tax holiday until 2047 for foreign cloud providers using India-based data centres to serve global markets, alongside a mandate that local sales route through resellers earning a 15 per cent safe-harbour margin. States are competing hard for this investment. Uttar Pradesh has approved a Rs 2 trillion policy targeting a 2 GW green, AI-ready hub, while Gujarat’s 2026-29 policy targets Rs 6 trillion in investment and 7.5 GW of capacity. A draft National Data Centre Policy offers up to 20 years of tax exemption tied to capacity, energy efficiency and job creation targets, and India has notified its first cloud, data centre and AI ethics standards aligned with ISO/IEC norms.
Manufacturing has also picked up pace. The union cabinet has cleared the India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, a Rs 1.27 trillion initiative, alongside the Rs 625 billion Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme for 2026-27 to 2030-31 aimed at deepening domestic value addition. The telecom production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme has already driven roughly 60 per cent import substitution in components like antennas and GPON equipment, with the government eyeing a $25 billion opportunity in telecom component manufacturing and proposing to extend PLI benefits to satcom products.
Outlook
The sector’s near-term trajectory hinges on execution rather than further policy design. The key questions for the coming year remain whether satcom security clearances and spectrum formalities clear in time for mega-constellations to go commercially live; whether OFC networks can scale fast enough to support the coming surge in AI and hyperscale data traffic; and whether recent developments like 5G SA international roaming, long-term enterprise 5G contracts and a maturing consumer protection framework can translate into the tariff and ARPU growth operators need. As India pushes from 5G-Advanced towards 6G, the real test will be whether it becomes a genuine co-architect of the next generation of global telecom standards, rather than simply an early and enthusiastic adopter.
