Boom time for the communications continued non-stop with India adding 20.08 million wireless subscribers in the quarter ended December 2006, taking the gross telecom subscriber base to 189.92 million.
NEW DELHI: Boom time for the communications continued non-stop with India adding 20.08 million wireless subscribers in the quarter ended December 2006, taking the gross telecom subscriber base to 189.92 million.
Ironically the growth has also brought in less average revenues for the operators with tariffs touching low levels.
The all India blended ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) per month for GSM services has declined by 6.2 per cent from Rs 337 in the previous quarter to Rs 316 in the December quarter.
The satisfactory part is that quality of service performance of the basic and cellular has improved as compared to previous quarter in several parameters.
The wireless market grew at 15.5 per cent in the quarter ending December 2006 by adding 20.08 million subscribers.
The gross subscriber base of the wire-line and wireless services together reached 189.92 million in the quarter ending December, 2006 from 170.02 million as on September 2006, showing an increase of 11.70 per cent, said the TRAI's quarterly performance indicator.
The overall growth for the year (December 2005 to December 2006) was 52.20 per cent. The tele-density in the quarter has reached 17.16 compared to 15.41 at the previous quarter and the subscriber base for wireless services has increased from 129.54 million to 149.62 million and that of fixed line service has decreased from 40.5 million to 40.3 million, it said.
Internet subscribers base reached 85.47 lakhs in the quarter by registering a growth of 5.9 per cent and broadband subscriber base reached 20.19 lakhs in the quarter by registering a growth of 11.12 per cent.
The number of Public Call Offices (PCO) in the country has increased to 5.30 million from 5.12 million by registering a growth of 3.51 per cent in quarter.
Rural Wireline subscriber base has reduced from 12.56 million in quarter ending September 2006 to 12.48 million in December quarter by registering a negative growth of 0.64 per cent.
The number of Village Public Telephones (VPT) in the country has increased to 5.59 lakhs from 5.52 lakhs recorded a growth of 1.26 per cent.
ARPU for GSM post paid service has declined by 1.7 per cent from Rs.643 in September 2006 to Rs.632 in December 2006.
ARPU for GSM prepaid has declined by 5.3 per cent from Rs.277 to Rs.262 in December quarter.
The All India blended ARPU (per month) for CDMA services for the quarter ending December is Rs.196 as against Rs.215 for the quarter ending September and has registered a negative growth of 8.83 per cent. Monthly ARPU for CDMA postpaid segment is Rs.456 and for CDMA prepaid segment is Rs.159.
Internet subscriber base at the end of quarter was 85.82 lakhs as compared to 80.96 lakhs during the preceding quarter registering an increase of 6.per cent.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has continued hold its top position with a market share of 44.60 per cent followed by MTNL with 19.40 per cent of share.
The number of Broadband subscribes (with a download speed of 256 Kbps or more) was 20.54 lakhs as on 31st December, 2006 with a growth rate of 13.04 per cent over the previous quarter.
The Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for dial up Internet subscribers was Rs.205 for the quarter ending December. The Minutes of Usage for dial-up access per subscriber/month was 190 minutes.
Basic operators have improved on parameters like Provision of Telephones after registration of demand within 7 days, fault incidences per 100 subscribers per month, fault repaired by next working day, metering and billing credibility.
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