Tele deasity touches, 232.77 mln mark in July

New Delhi, Aug 21 (UNI) The number of telecom subscribers increased by 7.56 million during July 2007 to 232.77 million subscribers, as compared to 158.05 during July last year, registering a growth of 47 per cent.

The GSM segment went up by 5.75 million during July 2007, the CDMA segment by 1.92 million while the fixed segment has decreased by 0.11 million, during the same period.

The overall teledensity improved further to 20.50 per cent in July this year as compared to 14.10 per cent as on July 31 last year.

In the GSM segment, Tamilnadu telecom circle added more than 5.6 lakh subscribers during July 2007, whereas in the CDMA segment, Delhi added more than 2.08 lakh subscribers during the period.

Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (E) and Maharashtra telecom circles have added more than six lakh subscribers each.

The growth of broadband connections improved further and at the end of June 2007, about 2.46 million broadband connections were provided and coverage of broadband connectivity by public sector service providers has reached 1,039 cities.

Further, the total number of existing ISP licencees is 373.

Under Bharat Nirman Programme, of the 66,822 villages remaining to be covered on November 2004, a total of 48,704 villages had been provided with VPTs till June this year.

The remaining 18,118 villages, having more than 100 population and not lying in thick forest area etc, are to be covered by November this year.

UNI