TRAI reports major leaps in phone, Internet connectivity

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) yesterday released their "The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators" report for the period between January and March 2012. As per the findings of the report, the number of telephone subscribers in the country rose from 926.53 million at the end of December '11 to 951.34 million at the end of March '12, thereby logging in a growth of 2.68 percent. Further it noted that, as on March 31, 2012, the overall tele-density in India reached 78.66. The report also found that the subscription in urban areas increased from 611.19 million at the end of December 11 to 620.53 million at the end of March 12. Urban teledensity too took a tiny leap from 167.85 to 169.55. Rural subscription grew from 315.33 million to 330.82 million, and rural teledensity increased from 37.48 to 39.22.

951.34 million telephone subscribers in India by March '12

Among the other findings of the report, was that the number of Internet subscribers in the country grew from being 22.39 million at the end of December '11 to 22.86 million at the end of March '12. The increase helped the nation register a quarterly growth rate of 2.10  percent. Interestingly, it was found that the top 10 ISPs held firm grip on 94.94 percent of the entire Internet subscriber base. Also, the number of subscribers to broadband services increased from being 13.35 million at the end of December 11 to 13.81 million at the end of March 12, thereby logging in a quarterly growth of 3.44 percent and year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth of 16.18 percent.

Among the service providers in the country, Bharti Airtel emerged as the leading operator in the "Access" segment in terms of the number of subscribers. In terms of net additions during the quarter, Idea topped the list. Idea is followed by Unitech and Bharti on this list. 

Idea also emerged as the service provider having the highest proportion of rural subscribers (53.68 percent) to its total subscribers. Among other findings, the report highlighted that Bharti is the leading operator with 181.28 million subscribers at the end of March '12, to be followed by Reliance (153.05 million) and Vodafone (150.47 million). 

The report also highlighted that at the end of March 2012, there were 8123 cyber cafes in the country. At the end of December 2011, there were 7585 cyber cafes in the country. Also, as per reports, now there are 36 ISPs providing Internet telephony services in India. Delving further into this, the report found that BSNL holds 55.32 percent of the market share with reported subscriber base of 12.65 million Internet subscribers at the end of March '12. Reliance is at second position (3.58 million), followed by MTNL (2.54 million).

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