India’s telecom industry, once marked by rapid disruption, is now dominated by a duopoly: Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. According to TRAI data from October 2025, Jio leads with 501.31 million subscribers, while Airtel follows with 309.22 million, collectively controlling over 80% of the mobile market. Vodafone Idea continues its decline at 127.48 million subscribers, and BSNL has seen marginal improvement to 34.31 million, primarily due to new 4G rollouts.
Despite the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) policy and high churn, over 15 million port requests in August 2025 alone, most users remain confined to Jio or Airtel. Alternatives offer inadequate coverage and lagging service quality, leaving consumers with limited choice even in a seemingly competitive environment. With over 1.22 billion mobile connections and a VLR of 93%, the market is near saturation, intensifying constraints on competition.
Government interventions aimed at revitalizing Vodafone Idea and modernizing BSNL have yielded only partial success, as both operators struggle with financial stress and weak infrastructure. While BSNL briefly surpassed Airtel in new customer additions in August, driven by pan-India 4G expansion, Jio and Airtel continue to set the pace for pricing, innovation, and network quality.
A sustained telecom duopoly poses long-term risks to consumers and the economy by weakening competition, innovation, and affordability. When two private players dominate over 80% of the market—as Jio and Airtel do today—pricing power inevitably concentrates in their hands, enabling coordinated tariff hikes and slower service improvements over time. Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has publicly warned that “a duopoly of one or two carriers is not good enough” and emphasized that robust competition is essential to ensure fair pricing, innovation, and universal access. Former TRAI officials have echoed similar concerns, noting that a narrowing market limits consumer choice and deters new entrants from investing in infrastructure, particularly in underserved rural regions.
The question is: Can BSNL be revived to challenge this duopoly and make the sector exciting again?
BSNL’s comeback
After years of financial decline, BSNL has returned to profitability for the first time in 17 years, recording consecutive profitable quarters and an operating profit of ₹53.96 billion ($608 million) in H1 FY 2025–26. This turnaround has been fueled by major government investment: over ₹250 billion ($2.8 billion) in FY 2024–25, with a new ₹470 billion ($5.3 billion) capex plan to accelerate modernization. An additional ₹6,982 crore was sanctioned in 2025 to bolster the 4G rollout nationwide.
As of July 2025, BSNL has deployed about 91,000 operational 4G sites—out of a planned 98,000—marking its largest-ever coverage expansion. This pan-India 4G rollout has laid the foundation for seamless upgrades to 5G services, positioning BSNL as a credible challenger to the entrenched duopoly. The company’s network is built on a fully indigenous, 5G-ready 4G technology stack developed by C-DOT and Tejas Networks (Tata Group), supporting the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. The planned launch of 5G services in Delhi and Mumbai before the end of 2025, with nationwide 5G coverage expected within eight months, signals BSNL’s strategic ambition to disrupt the status quo.
The lost opportunity – lessons from the past
In the mid-2000s, the Indian telecom market was highly fragmented, with 14–15 major operators competing across regional circles, including state-run BSNL alongside private players like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Reliance Communications. This period witnessed intense price wars with extremely low tariffs, rapid subscriber expansion in both urban and rural areas, and overlapping infrastructure that increased operational costs and sometimes compromised service quality. By 2010, market consolidation through mergers and exits reduced competition to a few pan-India operators, and by 2015 only deep-pocketed players like Airtel and Jio survived, solidifying the current duopoly.
For BSNL, this era was challenging despite its initial advantages as the incumbent with a large legacy landline network and early mover status in mobile services. It was the first to launch commercial 3G services in 2009; however, it struggled to capitalize on this lead due to operational problems such as network congestion, slower speeds, frequent call drops, and bureaucratic inertia. Private competitors rapidly gained ground by combining faster urban rollout, handset-subscription bundles, aggressive marketing, and competitive pricing, particularly in lucrative urban markets.
Financially, BSNL suffered throughout this period. The high costs of maintaining its expansive and aging infrastructure, combined with rising operational expenses, led to persistent losses—with losses exceeding ₹6,000 crore in 2010-11 and continuing in subsequent years. Revenue steadily declined while expenditures increased, causing BSNL to lose market share to more agile private players. Additionally, frequent regulatory changes, spectrum disputes, and a volatile environment further hampered BSNL’s competitiveness.
By the 2010s, these factors culminated in BSNL’s relegation to a marginal position, primarily serving rural and less competitive areas, far from the leadership it once held. The inability to transform its early advantage into sustained dominance highlights the need for the government and industry stakeholders to learn from these past shortcomings through sustained initiatives to avoid repeating them.
This history underscores how legacy infrastructure burdens, operational inefficiencies, and a reactive rather than proactive strategy prevented BSNL from fully benefiting from a highly competitive and rapidly evolving telecom landscape, ultimately leading to its diminished role in the market today.
BSNL 5G can be a strategic game changer
A key differentiator in BSNL’s resurgence is its fully indigenous, 5G-ready 4G technology stack, developed by C-DOT and Tejas Networks (Tata Group). Designed for seamless upgrades to 5G, the stack is being showcased domestically and for potential export.
BSNL’s “Swadeshi” rollout, endorsed by national leaders at events like India Mobile Congress 2025, aims to:
- Promote local talent and technology
- Secure India’s telecom supply chain
- Deliver affordable and wide-reaching 5G services, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas
BSNL plans to launch its first 5G services in Delhi and Mumbai before the end of 2025, with nationwide 5G coverage expected within eight months. If successful, this will reshape competition, giving consumers alternatives to Jio and Airtel and potentially pressuring the duopoly to improve service and pricing.
Despite financial recovery and technological advances, BSNL faces significant hurdles:
- Market share remains small relative to Jio and Airtel
- Commercial success will depend on ARPU growth, customer retention, and 5G adoption
- Operational efficiency and consistent service quality must match private competitors
BSNL is no longer just an aspirational entity—it has a credible foundation to reshape India’s telecom market. With state backing, record 4G coverage expansion, and an indigenous 5G stack, BSNL is poised to offer genuine competition, improved affordability, and wider consumer choice. The next 12–18 months will be critical in determining whether the former state-run giant can challenge the entrenched duopoly and redefine India’s digital connectivity landscape.
