A fierce legal and technical battle has broken out between India’s top two telecom giants. Bharti Airtel has formally opposed Reliance Jio’s proposal to repurpose the ultra-high-frequency 26 GHz (millimeter-wave) 5G spectrum for Wi-Fi-based Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services.

Both operators spent heavily to acquire these airwaves in the 2022 5G auctions (Jio holds 1,000 MHz and Airtel holds 800 MHz of adjacent spectrum). However, because the global millimeter-wave ecosystem has stalled due to high infrastructure costs and a lack of compatible consumer smartphones, Jio wants an alternative route—which Airtel argues will break the internet grid.

1. Jio’s Playbook: The Cheap Wi-Fi Loophole

Because building thousands of dense, 5G small-cell antennas to make 26 GHz viable is prohibitively expensive, Jio has submitted a plan to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to use the band for low-cost, indigenously designed broadband.

  • The Technology Shift: Instead of using expensive, proprietary mobile standards governed by the 3GPP (the global body behind 3G, 4G, and 5G), Jio wants to deploy hardware using IEEE Wi-Fi standards.
  • The Cost Factor: Customer-end equipment for a 3GPP 5G millimeter-wave setup can cost upwards of $200 (₹16,000+), which is too expensive for mass adoption in India. An open-source, Wi-Fi-based model would slash equipment costs significantly, allowing Jio to beam gigabit-class home broadband to rural and peripheral areas where laying optical fiber is economically impossible.
                    [ The 26 GHz Technology Divide ]

  [ Jio's Proposal ] ──► IEEE Wi-Fi Standards ──► Low-cost hardware, targets mass rural FWA
  
  [ Airtel's Stance ] ──► 3GPP 5G Standards   ──► High-cost, proprietary, standard global roadmap

2. Airtel’s Objections: “Standards Are Not Suggestions”

Airtel has raised severe technical and regulatory red flags with the DoT and the Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), centering its opposition on three critical arguments:

  • The Signal Interference Nightmare: Because Jio and Airtel’s 26 GHz holdings sit directly adjacent to one another, Airtel argues that introducing a completely different, non-3GPP standard will cause massive radio frequency (RF) bleedover, creating severe signal interference that will degrade Airtel’s nearby 5G mobile networks.
  • The Guard Band Disagreement: To prevent this interference, Jio has offered to voluntarily surrender and carve out a 200 MHz “guard band” from its own spectrum to act as a buffer zone. Airtel remains unconvinced, countering that technologically, only strict adherence to 3GPP standard protocols can stop adjacent signals from spilling over.
  • Radiation & Health Concerns: Airtel has also questioned the safety metrics of the proposal. It argues that high-power Wi-Fi transmitters blasting outdoors from rooftops generate entirely different electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation patterns and duty cycles than the standard indoor Wi-Fi systems the technology was originally optimized for.

3. The Regulatory Dilemma

The dispute has put the government in a tough position. Jio argues that India’s spectrum auction rules are legally “technology-neutral,” meaning a licensed operator can deploy any internationally recognized standard (including IEEE) as long as it handles interference.

To resolve the impasse, the government’s autonomous bodies—the Telecom Standards Development Society India (TSDSI) and the TEC—have brought in experts from IIT Madras to draft a brand-new, localized national standard for utilizing Wi-Fi tech in the 26 GHz band. A final regulatory ruling on whether Jio gets the green light to deploy its hybrid Wi-Fi network, or if Airtel successfully blocks it to protect global 5G compliance, is expected from the telecom ministry very shortly.

For a complete breakdown of the financial motivations behind buying this spectrum and the technical engineering challenges of the millimeter-wave grid, you can watch this analysis on Jio’s 26 GHz Wi-Fi Plan and the Airtel Conflict. This video explains how the 26 GHz band impacts operators’ financial balance sheets and why the choice of hardware standards is causing such a deep industry rift.