Govt to help telcos bring in cheaper handsets

New Delhi, May 24 (UNI) The government today extended help to telecom companies who would bring out 'affordable' Rs 1,000 and below priced CDMA handsets -- a move that would increase tele -- density in rural areas which is currently at a low of two per cent.

''We will help the company who comes up with the plan of rolling out the CDMA handset for less than Rs 1,000 in the rural areas,'' said Member (Technology), DOT, Ministry of Communications and IT while addressing 'International Conference on CDMA India 2007' here.

Presently only two per cent of the India's 800 million people in the rural areas are using mobiles.

CDMA technology was launched in India in 2004 and has a subscriber base of 46 million people out of the total 165 million people using mobile phones.

The target for CDMA base is 75 million subscribers by the end of fiscal 2007-08, said CDMA Development Group Country Head (India) B V Raman.

CDMA or code division multiple access is a rival technology to the more popular GSM or global system of mobiles.

UNI