India Counted 1,101.21 Million Broadband Subscribers at the End of August 2026, and Each Mobile Data User Averaged 28.39 GB a Month in the April to June Quarter

India had 1,101.21 million broadband subscribers at the end of August 2026, up from 1,094.48 million a month earlier, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) reported on 28 September. On 8 October, opening the 10th India Mobile Congress in New Delhi, the Prime Minister said 5G now runs from more than 5.5 lakh base stations and has reached every district of the country.

Both statements rest on documents anyone can read. TRAI’s monthly release is Press Release No. 125 of 2026, and its quarterly performance report, covering April to June, came out on 12 October. This piece sets the regulator’s tables beside what was said on the Congress stage, and notes where the two count differently.

What TRAI counted at the end of August

The 1,101.21 million broadband figure is made of three parts, according to TRAI’s release. Fixed wired connections (broadband over copper, fibre or cable) came to 48.63 million. Fixed wireless connections (broadband delivered by radio instead of a cable, including 5G) came to 19.34 million. Mobile broadband on handsets, dongles and machine-to-machine devices came to 1,033.24 million.

Machine-to-machine (M2M) connections link devices to a network rather than serving a person’s phone. TRAI gives the total with and without them, and without them the count is 1,010.28 million. Reliance Jio had 538.03 million of the broadband total, Bharti Airtel 386.39 million and Vodafone Idea 130.88 million.

Connections, not people

TRAI counted 1,360.70 million telephone connections of all kinds at the end of August, up 0.47 percent in the month. Its release puts overall tele-density, the number of connections per 100 people, at 95.07 percent, and at 85.26 percent when M2M connections are left out.

The release breaks the 1,312.25 million wireless connections into 1,152.92 million consumer SIM cards, 140.50 million M2M SIMs and 18.82 million fixed wireless connections. Wireline connections made up the other 48.45 million. Rural India accounted for 558.43 million of the telephone total, and rural tele-density was 61.12 percent.

The quarterly report gives a year-on-year comparison. Total telephone subscribers stood at 1,348.08 million at the end of June 2026, which TRAI says is 10.65 percent more than a year earlier.

5G in every district, and the base station count

In the Prime Minister’s address, as the Press Information Bureau (PIB) published it, 5G networks now operate from over 5.5 lakh base stations and have reached every district. He recalled launching 5G from the same Congress stage in 2022 and said internet speeds have since risen tenfold.

The Union communications minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, gave the user count. As Hindusthan Samachar reported his inaugural speech, India has 550 million 5G users, and he called it the fastest-adopting 5G market in the world. The News Mill, reporting his remarks at the Congress, has him citing over 516,000 5G base stations, covering 99.9 percent of districts and 86 percent of the population. Communications Today’s wrap-up of the event says more than 550,000. So the count runs from over 516,000 to over 5.5 lakh, and the district coverage from 99.9 percent to every district, depending on the speaker and the report. The sources do not reconcile these.

TRAI’s August release separates 5G only for fixed wireless. It does not publish a count of 5G phone users, so the 550 million is the minister’s figure.

Fixed wireless is bigger in villages than in cities

Fixed wireless access (FWA) over 5G brings home or office broadband through a radio box instead of a cable. TRAI counted 13.45 million such subscribers at the end of August, up from 13.21 million in July. Reliance Jio had 9,419,096 of them and Bharti Airtel 4,034,325, from the annexure to the release.

The urban and rural split is 6.47 million and 6.98 million. Rural subscribers are 51.90 percent of the total, TRAI says. Fibre to the village runs on a separate track, which our piece on BharatNet follows. Satellite broadband is a third, and the licences granted to Starlink and two other operators are covered there.

How much data, and what a gigabyte earns

The April to June report records 1,045.55 million mobile data subscribers, up from 1,026.75 million at the end of March. Together they used 84,424 petabytes of data in the quarter, against 77,953 petabytes in January to March, a rise of 8.30 percent. A petabyte is about a million gigabytes.

The average came to 28.39 GB per mobile data subscriber per month, up from 26.70 GB in the previous quarter. TRAI also records the average revenue operators realised per gigabyte at Rs 7.13, down from Rs 7.51.

At the Congress, Scindia said a gigabyte cost Rs 268 in 2014 and costs about Rs 8 now, as Open Magazine and Indian Television reported him. Both also carry his figure for average monthly use per customer: 36 GB, up from 0.26 GB in 2014. That is higher than TRAI’s 28.39 GB, and the reports do not say how the minister’s number was worked out. TRAI’s Rs 7.13 is what operators actually collected per gigabyte, so it also differs in kind from a tariff price.

What the sector earned

For April to June 2026, TRAI puts the telecom sector’s gross revenue at Rs 1,06,797 crore (about Rs 1.07 lakh crore), which is 10.50 percent above the same quarter a year before. Adjusted gross revenue was Rs 88,796 crore, up 9.19 percent year on year.

Average revenue per user for wireless service was Rs 187.12 a month, up from Rs 184.91 in January to March and 3.11 percent above a year earlier. The quarter also saw the total wireless base rise by 17.92 million connections, to 1,300.25 million, which is 11.05 percent more than in June 2025.

The 2030 target and the next stage

The Prime Minister said that commercial chip production is already running at five locations, and that the next phase of the India Semiconductor Mission will aim at making the whole supply chain at home. The five plants are described in our chip report.

The Bharat 6G Alliance has 90 institutions and 7,700 patents, 4,400 of them international, Scindia said, as IBEF and Hindusthan Samachar reported. He told the audience the next stage depends on India shaping technology standards, making equipment and innovating across the telecom value chain, in Indian Television’s account.

On the 5G user count he set a date, as Hindusthan Samachar quotes him: “By 2030, our target is to increase the number of 5G users from 550 million to one billion.”