Telecom user base move up to 183.45 million

New Delhi, Dec 15 (UNI) Spearheaded by the wireless boom, telecom users in the country reached 183.45 million with an addition of a 6.75 million phones last month.

The upward trend in the number of new telecom subscribers continued to be maintained in the month of November 2006, with a net addition of 6.75 million phones - an average daily addition of more than 2.2 lakh lines.

As a result, the total number of telephones in the country is now more than 183.45 million, as against a total of 176.7 million as on October 31, 2006, a growth of 3.8 per cent.

The growth in November 2006 was 52% over that of November 2005. Almost the entire growth registered during the month was in the wireless segment, with GSM contributing 5.04 million and CDMA contributing 1.78 million respectively. However, there was a slight decrease in the fixed line segment, reducing the number of subscribers by 0.07 million.

The overall teledensity improved further to 16.28 per cent in November 2006 from 15.7 per cent in October 2006 and from 10.87 per cent as on November 30, 2005.

The Haryana telecom circle recorded the highest growth rate (9.62 per cent) in the GSM segment, followed by Bihar telecom circle (8.46 per cent).

In the CDMA segment, the total subscriber base registered a growth of four per cent with a net addition of 1.78 million subscribers. Maharashtra telecom circle contributed the maximum to this addition. Andhra Pradesh added more than six lakh subscribers during the month.

The growth of broadband connections improved further and at the end of October 2006, about 1.86 million broadband connections were provided and coverage of broadband connectivity by public sector service providers reached 593 cities. Further, the total number of existing ISP licencees was 389.

Under Bharat Nirman Programme, of the 66,822 villages remaining to be covered on November 2004, a total of 36,014 Village Public Telephones (VPTs) have been provided. The remaining 30,808 villages having more than 100 population and not lying in thick forest area etc. are to be covered by November 2007.

UNI RT PKS KN1859