Rural teledensity at 12% despite mobile revolution

Around 30% of Bharti Airtel’s wireless subscriber base resides in the rural parts of the country, according to official data. For Vodafone, BSNL, Reliance Communications and Idea Cellular, the rural user base is around 31%, 34%, 19% and 30% of their respective wireless pie.
Out of an all-India mobile subscriber base of 347 million as of 2008-end, the rural India contributed around 92 million, or 26%.  

Even so, rural teledensity (phones per 100) is still quite low at 12.62%, against urban teledensity of 81.3%. The overall teledensity as of end of December 2008 was 33.23%.

The low rural teledensity has prompted the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to come out with a draft recommendation on the modalities for improving the phone penetration in the rural parts.

Trai has recommended revitalisation of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) as a first step to improve rural phone penetration. While Rs 20,404 crore has been collected as USO Fund since the FY2002-03, only Rs 6,723 crore has been allocated and disbursed till now, the authority said. Trai said, “USOF should be re-organised and revamped with concrete powers. It is important that the USOF administrator is empowered effectively in terms of administrative, financial powers and ultimate decision-making.”