NE Circle sees high growth rate in GSM segment

Aizawl, Jul 3 (UNI) The North East telecom circle has recorded the highest growth rate in the GSM segment during the month of June.

The upward trend in the number of new telecom subscribers continued with a net addition of 4.36 million phones, with an average daily addition of 1.4 lakh lines during June 2006, officials sources here today stated.

As a result, the total number of telephones in the country also crossed 150.55 million, as against a total of 146.19 million as on April 2006.

The growth in June 2006 was 48 per cent over that of June 2005.

Almost the entire growth registered was in the mobile segment - with GSM contributing 3.16 million and CDMA contributing 1.1 million, respectively.

The overall teledensity too improved further with 13.46 per cent being recorded in June 2006 from 13.09 per cent in April 2006.

The North East Telecom Circle continued to record the highest growth rate (14.36 per cent) in the GSM segment, led by Assam (10.70 per cent) and Jammu and Kashmir telecom Circles (8.04 per cent).

The growth of broadband connections also improved further and at the end of April 2006, over 1.38 million broadband connections were provided and coverage of broadband connectivity by public sector service providers has reached 291 cities. Further, the total number of existing ISP licences stood at 401.

Under the Bharat Nirman Programme, a total of 25431 Village Public Telephones (VPTs) have been provided.

The remaining 41391 villages having more than 100 as population and not lying in thick forest area, are likely to be covered by November 2007, sources added.

UNI SNR SP SS1101