Rural areas to get a boost in connectivity, Maran

New Delhi, Apr 25 (UNI) The government today said the rural areas of the country will have a total of 50 million telecom subscribers this year by setting up 8,000 transmitting towers in rural areas.

''Another 50 million will be added next year,'' Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran said.

He said that the the overall telecom base of the country will reach 250 million by August from 206.83 million at present.

To tap the rural areas of the country 8,000 towers will be installed through the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund this calendar year, Mr Maran told reporters here.

''We will set up 10,000 towers in rural areas by 2009-10 and have asked the USO administration to come out with a plan for fibre to village (FTV),'' he said. ''Fibre will play an important role in the years to come,'' Mr Maran said.

Mr Maran said the total telephony subscriber base (wireless and wireline) stands at 206.83 million at the end of the fiscal, with an annual addition of 66.51 million subscribers during-fiscal 2006-07.

On domestic roaming, Mr Maran said tariff would come down heavily compared to local charges in the next two years.

Also, a penalty of Rs 1,000 per subscriber will be imposed on the telecom operators for non-verification of customer's identity, the process for which has already begun.

Talking about broadband, Mr Maran said nine million connections will be rolled out by the year-end of which seven million will be contributed by BSNL and MTNL.

A 42.5 mhz spectrum will be available by July while the 3G spectrum plan is in process, he said. When asked, Mr Maran said 3G is not an extension of 2G.

Meanwhile, the wireless services subscriber base at the end of March this year stood at 166.05 million as compared to 98.78 million in the same month last year, registering a growth of 68 per cent.

The month added 3.53 million wireless subscribers as against 6.21 million subscribers in February this year, figures released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said.

''This lower growth in March can be attributed to insistence by the government to ensure verification of subscribers,'' the telecom regulator said.

In the wireline segment, a total of 0.40 million subscribers were added during March'07 as compared to a decline of 0.02 million in February'07.

With this, the total subscriber base of wireline reached 40.78 million in March as against 41.54 million in March last year, registering a decline of 1.82 per cent.

The total telephony subscriber base (wireless and wireline) added 66.51 million subscribers during-fiscal 2006-07 to stand at 206.83 million at the end of the fiscal, an increase of 58 per cent over 2005-06.

During March alone, the subscriber base grew by 3.93 million.

The teledensity was 18.31 per cent at the end of March'07 as compared to 12.80 per cent a year ago.

Broadband connections posted a growth of 70 per cent to touch 2.30 million at the end of March as compared to 1.35 million last year.

The broadband subscribers were 2.21 million in February last, thus adding 0.09 million subscribers in the month of March.

UNI