India's total telephone subscriber base rose to 1,360.70 million (about 136.07 crore) at the end of August 2026, according to monthly data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released on September 28, 2026. The country added 6.42 million telephone connections during the month, a growth of 0.47%.

Broadband connections also grew, from 1,094.48 million at the end of July to 1,101.21 million at the end of August, a monthly rise of 0.61%.

The headline numbers

Measure, end of August 2026WirelessWirelineTotal
Telephone subscribers (million)1,312.2548.451,360.70
Net addition in August (million)5.980.446.42
Urban subscribers (million)759.1143.16802.28
Rural subscribers (million)553.145.29558.43

TRAI's wireless figure includes mobile phone connections, machine-to-machine (M2M) SIM connections and fixed wireless access such as 5G home broadband.

Tele-density: city and village gap

Overall tele-density - the number of connections for every 100 people - was 95.07% at the end of August. The gap between cities and villages remains wide:

  • Urban tele-density: 155.00%
  • Rural tele-density: 61.12%

Urban density above 100% simply means many city users hold more than one connection. Rural areas accounted for 41.04% of all telephone subscribers.

Broadband by type of connection

SegmentJuly 2026 (million)August 2026 (million)Change
Fixed wired (fibre, DSL, cable, LAN)48.1448.631.01%
Fixed wireless (5G FWA, Wi-Fi, satellite and others)18.8419.342.68%
Mobile (3G, 4G, 5G handsets, dongles, M2M)1,027.501,033.240.56%
Total1,094.481,101.210.61%

Fixed wireless access, which includes 5G home broadband, was the fastest-growing segment during the month.

Top broadband providers

The five largest broadband providers, counting wired and wireless together, held 98.58% of the market at the end of August 2026:

  1. Reliance Jio Infocomm - 538.03 million
  2. Bharti Airtel - 386.39 million
  3. Vodafone Idea - 130.88 million
  4. BSNL - 27.82 million
  5. Atria Convergence Technologies (ACT) - 2.48 million

In wired home broadband alone, Jio (14.81 million) and Airtel (11.44 million) led, followed by BSNL (4.56 million), ACT (2.48 million) and Kerala Vision Broadband (1.56 million).

Other points from the release

  • Mobile number portability: 15.83 million people applied to switch their mobile operator in August 2026.
  • Active mobile users: 1,207.59 million wireless subscribers were active on the day of peak network usage (peak VLR) during the month - fewer than the 1,312.25 million connections on record, since not every SIM is in regular use.
  • Landlines: wireline subscribers rose from 48.01 million to 48.45 million. State-run BSNL, MTNL and APSFL together held 16.05% of the wireline market.

What it means for you

The data shows most growth is now coming from broadband rather than new phone users, and home internet through fibre and 5G fixed wireless is growing faster than mobile. For a household choosing a connection, the numbers mainly show which networks have the widest user base; service quality in your own area is a separate question, which TRAI tracks through its drive tests.

TRAI publishes these figures every month, based on data reported by telecom operators, so the September 2026 numbers will follow in its next monthly release.

Sources

More from Top India News