6.68 mln phone-subscribers added in Oct, teledensity up at 15.7 pc

New Delhi, Nov 15 (UNI) The upward trend in the number of new telecom subscribers continued in October with a net addition of 6.68 million connections, an average daily addition of more than two lakh lines.

The total number of subscribers in the country was about 176.5 million, as against a total of 170 million as on September 30 -- a growth of 3.8 per cent.

The growth in October 2006 was 51 per cent over that of October 2005. Almost the entire growth registered during the month was in the wireless segment - with GSM contributing 4.73 million and CDMA contributing 2.03 milli.

There was a marginal decline in the fixed line segment, reducing the number of subscribers by 0.08 million.

During the month, the overall teledensity improved further to 15.7 per cent from 15.1 per cent in September and from 10.53 per cent during the corresponding period last year.

The North-East telecom circle recorded the highest growth rate (9.38 per cent) in the GSM segment, followed closely by Madhya Pradesh telecom circle (9.22 per cent) while in the CDMA segment, the total subscriber-base registered a growth of 5.2 per cent with a net addition of two million subscribers.

Andhra Pradesh Circle alone added more than 6.7 lakh subscribers during the month, which is the highest.

The growth of broadband connections improved further and at the end of September 2006, with an addition of over 1.8 million broadband connections taking the coverage of public sector internet service providers to 487 cities.

Further, the total number of existing ISP licencees is 395.

A total of 31,691 Village Public Telephones (VPTs) had been provided in 66,822 villages, which remained to be covered on November 2004.

The remaining 35,131 villages, which have a population of 100 people and are not in thick forest areas, are to be covered by November 2007.

UNI RT PKS RS1840