Particulars	Wireless*	Wireline	Total (Wireless+ Wireline)
Broadband Subscribers with M2M cellular mobile connections (Million)	1,052.58	48.63	1,101.21
Broadband Subscribers without M2M cellular mobile connections (Million)	961.65	48.63	1,010.28
Urban Telephone Subscribers (Million)	759.11	43.16	802.28
Net Addition in August 2026 (Million)	5.25	0.34	5.59
Monthly Growth Rate	0.70%	0.80%	0.70%
Rural Telephone Subscribers (Million)	553.14	5.29	558.43
Net Addition in August 2026 (Million)	0.73	0.10	0.83
Monthly Growth Rate	0.13%	1.96%	0.15%
Total Telephone Subscribers (Million)	1312.25	48.45	1360.70
Net Addition in August 2026 (Million)	5.98	0.44	6.42
Monthly Growth Rate	0.46%	0.93%	0.47%
Share of Urban Subscribers	57.85%	89.08%	58.96%
Share of Rural Subscribers	42.15%	10.92%	41.04%
Overall Tele-density@ with M2M cellular mobile connections	91.69%	3.39%	95.07%
Urban Tele-density@	146.66%	8.34%	155.00%
Rural Tele-density@	60.55%	0.58%	61.12%
Tele-density@ without M2M cellular mobile connections	81.87%	3.39%	85.26%

 

• In the month of August 2026, 15.83 million subscribers submitted their requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP).                                                                
• The number of active wireless (mobile) subscribers (on the date of peak VLR^#) in August 2026 was 1207.59 million.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Note:

^*  The wireless subscriber base comprises of wireless mobile telephone subscribers (including M2M cellular mobile connections), and FWA subscribers.

@ Tele-density has been computed on the basis of the projection of population from the ‘Report of the Technical Group on Population Projections for India and States 2011 – 2036’, published in August 2020.

# VLR is an acronym of Visitor Location Register. The dates of peak VLR for various Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) August be different in different service areas.

• Information in this press release is based on the data provided by the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) to TRAI.

 

Broadband Subscribers

• As per the information received from 1579 operators for the month of August 2026, the total number of broadband subscribers increased from 1094.48 million at the end of July 2026 to 1101.21 million at the end of August 2026 with a monthly growth rate of 0.61%. Segment-wise number of broadband subscribers and their monthly growth rates are as below: -                             

Segment–wise Broadband Subscribers and Monthly Growth Rate in the month of August 2026

 

Segment	Subscription	Broadband Subscribers (in million)		Percentage Change
		July 2026	August 2026
Wired subscribers	Fixed Wired Access (DSL, FTTx, Ethernet/LAN, Cable Modem, ILL)	48.14	48.63	1.01%
Wireless Subscribers	Fixed Wireless Access (5G FWA, Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Radio/UBR, Satellite)	18.84	19.34	2.68%
	Mobile Wireless Access (Handset/Dongle/M2M-based-3G, 4G, 5G)	1027.50	1033.24	0.56%
Total Broadband Subscriptions		1094.48	1101.21	0.61%

 

Top five Broadband (Wired & Wireless) Service providers at the end of August 2026

S.N.	Service Provider	Subscriber base (In million)
	Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.	538.03
	Bharti Airtel Ltd.	386.39
	Vodafone Idea Ltd.	130.88
	Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.	27.82
	Atria Convergence Technologies Ltd.	2.48
Market Share of Top Five Broadband (Wired & Wireless) Service Providers		98.58%

 

• The graphical representation of the service provider-wise market share of broadband services is given below: -

Service Provider-wise Market Share of Broadband (Wired & Wireless) Services at the end of August 2026

 

Top Five Fixed Wired Access Broadband Service providers at the end of August 2026

 

 

Top five Wireless (Fixed wireless & mobile) Access Broadband Service providers at the end of August 2026

 

Wireline Telephone Subscriber Base

• The number of wireline subscribers increased from 48.01 million at the end of July 2026 to 48.45 million at the end of August 2026. The net increase in the wireline subscriber base was 0.44 million with a monthly growth rate of 0.93%.                  
• The overall wireline tele-density in India increased from 3.36% at the end of July 2026 to 3.39% at the end of August 2026. Urban and rural wireline tele-density were 8.34% and 0.58% respectively, at the end of August 2026.  The respective share of urban subscribers, and rural subscribers in total wireline subscribers were 89.08% and 10.92% respectively at the end of August 2026.
• PSU access service providers viz. BSNL, MTNL, and APSFL together held 16.05% of the wireline market share at the end of August 2026. Detailed statistics of the wireline subscriber base are available at Annexure-I. 

Click here to see Annexure

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NJ/AR

(Release ID: 2316034) Visitor Counter : 272