New Delhi, Aug. 5 -- Bharti Airtel Ltd is pulling back on its fixed wireless access (FWA) expansion, pivoting back to fibre broadband as rising hardware costs and weak customer retention weigh on the economics of 5G-based home broadband.

The shift comes even as rival Reliance Jio continues to expand its AirFiber business. Airtel executives said higher memory and chipset costs have hurt FWA economics, while low entry-level pricing attracted customers who were less likely to stay with the service, prompting the company to tighten customer acquisition and deploy FWA only where fibre is not viable.

"While low entry-level pricing helped attract customers, the outcomes were not consistent with the quality of customers.with a higher churn and ...