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The ‘Uber Model’ of Broadband: How Excitel is Wiring the 75% of India That Giants Ignore
By Newspatron
In a market dominated by conglomerates with deep pockets, Excitel has carved out a significant share by doing exactly what the giants avoid. While Reliance Jio and Airtel focus on structured, affluent neighborhoods, Excitel targets the “unstructured” 75% of urban India—the narrow lanes and dense localities where standard deployment is a logistical nightmare.
Founder Vivek Raina, a Kashmiri Pandit who rebuilt his life after the 1990 exodus, credits his success to an “Uber-like” business model. Instead of owning the entire infrastructure, Excitel partners with local cable operators (LCOs) to manage the “last mile” connectivity. This strategy has not only reduced capital expenditure but also turned potential local competitors into partners.
The Innovation: ‘Uberizing’ Broadband
The traditional telecom model requires the company to own everything—from the core server to the wire entering the customer’s home. Excitel disrupted this by decoupling the Core from the Last Mile.
- The Core (Excitel’s Role): Excitel manages the data centers, the 7,000 km core fiber ring in cities like Delhi, the IT systems, and the brand marketing.
- The Last Mile (Partner’s Role): The local partner (often a former cable operator) invests in and maintains the wiring from the neighborhood node to the customer’s home.
Raina reveals that partners typically keep about 40% of the revenue, while Excitel retains 60%. This incentivizes local operators to maintain high service quality because their income is directly tied to customer retention. “We handle the technology and sales; they handle the wires and the local nuances,” Raina explains, noting that local partners know exactly how to navigate neighborhood politics and infrastructure hurdles.
The Physics of Connectivity: Why 5G Won’t Kill Fiber
A common question in the telecom industry is whether 5G (and eventually 6G) will render wired broadband obsolete. Raina argues that basic physics dictates the need for wires inside the home.
The Frequency-Penetration Trade-off:
- Mobile Spectrum: Mobile internet uses a shared “invisible pipe” (spectrum). As more users join, the speed per user drops.
- Wall Penetration: As technology progresses from 2G to 5G, frequencies get higher. Higher frequencies have lower amplitude, meaning they struggle to penetrate walls. “5G doesn’t work indoors; you need line-of-sight,” Raina asserts.
This physical limitation ensures that while mobile data is excellent for on-the-go usage, high-bandwidth activities like 4K streaming or gaming require a dedicated wireline connection.
Strategic Market Segmentation: The Unstructured Advantage
India’s urban landscape is unique. Raina estimates that only 25% of urban India is “structured” (planned colonies with utility shafts), while 75% is “unstructured” (dense, unplanned areas).
Large telcos prefer structured areas where deployment is standardized. By focusing on the unstructured 75%, Excitel operates where the density of homes per square kilometer is ten times higher than in structured areas. This density makes the unit economics highly favorable, allowing them to offer 200 Mbps speeds at prices (approx. ₹500) that competitors struggle to match without subsidies.
The Entrepreneurial Mindset: Antifragility
Raina’s journey is a case study in resilience. Displaced from Kashmir at age 12, his family lived in a single room for nearly a decade. This experience, combined with his reading of Nassim Taleb, shaped his business philosophy.
Raina cites the concept of Antifragility—systems that gain strength from stressors, unlike fragile items that break. “Entrepreneurship is the only profession that is antifragile,” he notes. “Every time you fail, you learn, and you grow”. He contrasts this with the “fragility” of monthly salaries, which he jokingly lists alongside cocaine and carbohydrates as things to avoid for a truly liberated life.
Future Outlook: Starlink and AI
On Starlink: Raina dismisses the threat of satellite internet like Starlink in dense urban areas. While excellent for remote locations (deserts, oceans, mountains), the cost (~₹4,000–5,000/month) and limited spectrum make it unviable for mass urban adoption compared to ₹500 fiber plans.
On AI: Excitel is currently integrating AI for customer support and predictive maintenance. By predicting downtime and automating responses, AI helps maintain the uniform quality of service essential for scaling the partner model.
Conclusion
Excitel’s rise demonstrates that understanding the unique texture of the Indian market—specifically its “unstructured” reality—can create massive opportunities that standardized global models miss. By empowering local stakeholders rather than displacing them, Excitel has built a scalable, antifragile network.
